Marie
by Funky Poacher
Summary: Although the Pitt had their revolution, Nicole can see that things haven't changed. Finding redemption in the form of Marie, she takes the child away. But Wernher isn't going to let her destroy his new regime, and tracks them into the Capital Wasteland.
1. Chapter 1

It used to be the sight of the Pitt that made Nick's stomach turn, as though the steel produced by the slaves had been melted down and now churned as a volcanic geyser in the pit of her stomach. Eyes reflected the flashes of the mill's fires, and the red glow bounced off their burnt cheeks. Nick had always imagined it would be at the end of her days that she would be met with the infernos of Hell, but here they were, and tended not by Devils with pitchforks, but by back-bent, bleary eyed workers with blow-torches.

Looking sky-ward and wiping sweat from her brow, Nick was reminded of Nadine. Nadine, as in the orange-haired daughter of Catherine (not Nick's mom); as in ex Ark-and-Dove-Cathedral cult member and current captain of her very own luxury ferry. "Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning," she'd always say as evening washed across the deck of the Duchess Gambit and the two women drank cool Whiskey, lounged in comfy armchairs, and worked their way either to or from the Capital Wasteland. Well, the sky was always red here in the Pitt. What did that mean to those that lived there? Not a thing.

Yeah, it used to be the sight of the place that made Nichole sick. Now, however, it was the smell that got to her. Sweat and sulphur mixed with ebbing hope. It was that last thing that really stunk.

Nick hadn't been a slave, but she shared their pain. It had been about two months since the 'workers revolution', and admittedly in the beginning, the future looked even brighter than the sky over the city. With Ashur and his cronies gone, Wernher had promised that things would be easier. The slaves were no longer slaves, but they still had to work. Now, however, they weren't working for Ashur's indulgences. They were working to better their living conditions, and for trading contracts with whatever cities they wanted, and for the goods they felt they needed. Better food became available, and they had Saturdays off. Of course, Ashur had always given them Sunday as a day of leisure, and now, without Ashur's men to regulate, clean water was becoming scarce as everyone delighted excessively in this previously-scarce commodity.

The workers had hope, but not a lot else. As of late, Wernher gave the bad news that they weren't yielding enough to fill their production orders, and if that happened, their contracts with Ronto and the settlement of Shadow might be cancelled. If that happened, it was bye-bye to the medical supplies, which included the all-important radiation medicine. And, of course, no more fresh fruit which the citizens of the Pitt had just gotten a taste for.

So it was as it had been before, except at least the workers now had their pride. Nicole didn't get to share in that. She stewed quietly in her own secret guilt.

Staying the blow-torch's blast, Nick stepped away from her work and wiped her brow once more. She'd never been so grimy or stiff in her life, but if it meant that one worker was spared a few hours of back-breaking labour, then she didn't mind. And Nicole knew that Josephine, the woman whose place she'd taken, had advanced arthritis in her fingers. She didn't deserve to be stuck behind a torcher's mask.

"Quitting time, eh, Nick?" asked a man named William who was working beside her. Leaning on a shovel nonchalantly he watched her over his gloved hands. Will's own mask was flipped up, and it revealed a large burn on the side of his face, but the disfigurement didn't deter him from trying to get into the pants of every girl in the Pitt. Nicole really didn't care. If sex was something that distracted him from his piss-poor life, well, so be it.

"Yep," Nicole sighed and dropped her instrument. Pulling the thick gloves off her hands, she waved and stretched her fingers, working out the kinks and trying to cool them. "Same time tomorrow, buddy."

As Will waved her off, Nicole was really, really glad that no one knew who she was here. Sure, she'd been very important to the workers' revolution, but as far as anyone was concerned, that was only a part of the big picture. There was still so much that had to be done; that, at least, was what Wernher was always assuring them of. Here, she wasn't the girl who had climbed out of Vault 101, coddled and ignorant, to become the woman who delivered the DC area from the Enclave and brought fresh water to the masses. She could get down and dirty, and people wouldn't look at her in bewilderment, wondering why she hadn't retired with her ego fulfilled, and wealth endless.

Nicole made her way to Haven. It wasn't like it had been when Ashur had been around; now it was a rather quiet place. Wernher had said that it was the symbol of Ashur's regime, what with the large statue of a shackled man made of twisted steel right outside the door of the compound. In rejection of that regime, the workers readily avoided it. Of course, that was where Wernher was to eventfully move to, permanently. It was, after all, where the science lab was. It was where a cure was being made for the Trog illness. It was where Marie was.

Today Nicole was taking a toy car to Marie. She'd found it on the bridge between the Pitt and the tunnel back to the Capital Wasteland, a place she didn't even considered home anymore. She hadn't seen its starry sky in two months, or felt the cool air come across the quiet hills.

Approaching the door which had once been Ashur's office and was now Wernher's, a man stood before the doors which were closed. They'd never been closed before. Not even when Ashur had been there.

"What are you doing here?" asked the man. He had a very dirty face, and undoubtedly dirtier hands. One of those hands moved slowly across his holster where a small pistol was nestled. Two months ago that might have been an invitation for an altercation, and even if she had no weapon, that would have meant nothing to Nicole. Two months ago. Now, however, the movement sent a shiver of fear through her spine.

"I'm here to see Wernher," Nicole said. At least she sounded confident. It came with the knowledge that she knew she wouldn't be turned away.

"Got an appointment?"

Nicole was dumbfounded. "An appointment?"

"Yeah. No one gets in without an appointment."

"Since when?" Nicole blurted out. She pinched the bridge of her nose and sniffed, "Look, do you know who I am?"

"Hey, now, no one here is better than anyone else," the man cautioned, his tone betraying how he actually felt about that statement. Nicole sighed.

"My name is Nicole. I've never been turned away before. Please get on the intercom, and we'll have this sorted out right away, alright?"

A few minuets later she was breezing through the door, but Nicole couldn't ignore that shiver which hadn't yet subsided. Wernher was sitting behind his desk, absorbed in some papers on his desk, surrounded by empty Scotch bottles and butted out cigars. He looked up at her as she approached, and the whites of his eyes were tinged with red. Either he was sleep deprived from stressing over the situation with the work orders, or... he was Jetting.

"Nicky," he croaked, putting some effort into correcting his posture. Sitting up straight, he motioned to the chair across from him. "Scotch?"

"No thanks," Nicole said, but politely took the seat. Shrugging, Wernher poured himself another glass.

"So, what's on your mind, blondie?"

Nicole never had been a fan of Wernher's nicknames.

"Well, lately I've been thinking I might head back to DC," Nicole said. When Wernher didn't have a smart-ass comment, she decided to jump right into the heart of the matter. "Have you ever been to Point Lookout?"

"Nope," Wernher took a large drag of his cigar. "But I've heard of it. Nasty, wet place."

"Yeah, well," Nicole eased back in her chair as the cigar smoke billowed around them, the smell wretched. "It's also where punga fruit is grown. I'm assuming a smart man like you knows what that is?"

Wernher gave her a 'Yeah, so what?' look over the brim of his glass of Scotch. Nicole eyed him steadily as she plunged into her proposal.

"If you established some sort of trade agreement with the people who cultivate punga, you could have a food source that not only fills stomachs but helps with the radiation problem."

Nicole expected the man who was clearly out of his mind on Jet to be impressed, but he just rolled his eyes and his counter-argument, as it would turn out, wasn't as half-brained as the woman had anticipated.

"Don't you think I know what's best for my people? The expenses of that would be huge. How much land would we have to cross to get our product to Point Lookout? And I've tried punga, it's real nice. Real... bourgeois. But we have enough trouble filling orders for Shadow and Ronto, as you so kindly reminded me. You want to add to the work load? Or do you think I should break with those contracts? Because I know punga isn't the answer to the radiation problem, Nicole."

Wernher stared her down. Her. By a fucking Jetter.

"How's Marie?" she asked quietly. With a stab of his cigar into the bottom of the ashtray, Wernher stretched out in his chair and scoffed.

"Peachy. Got another toy for her? The brat has been really fussy lately, but she just lights up when you bring that garbage around."

Nicole regained some of her composure and all but yelled her retort. "Yeah, I do. Mind if I go and see her?"

"Of course not," Wernher said, changing his tone suddenly. He was bright, affectionate. "Look, Nicky, I appreciate your suggestions, I do. I just don't want to add any more work, you know? The people have enough on their plate as it is. Otherwise I'd be all over your punga thing."

Nicole couldn't take her eyes from the floor as she made her way to the lab. She wondered if she should sneak back into Wernher's office and scoop her pride back up off the floor, but decided it wasn't worth it. In reality, the punga idea had been something floating around in her mind for some time, but she hadn't planned to approach Wernher with proposal yet. Nicole hadn't even been thinking about leaving and returning to DC. No matter how much it stunk, life had gotten easy to the point of being comfortable in the Pitt. But she could feel her old self shrinking away. The only part that remained of Nicole, daughter of James and Catherine and all her experiences, was that voice deep down in her belly that felt angry every time she saw what Wernher was doing. So she'd leapt before she looked and Wernher had shot her down.

Looking up as she entered the lab, she noted that it too, like Haven, had changed since the first time she'd entered its sterilized walls. Now it had become littered with used equipment, papers and broken down terminals. In the corner was Marie, laying down in an altered crib, fussing slightly. She was moving her head back and forth and kicking her legs. It was too cold in the room for her to be uncovered, but she was, and also completely unattended. There was no one in the lab at all. Marie's tufts of dark hair seemed so thin.

"Good God," Nicole sighed as she stared down sadly. There was a quiet shuffling behind her.

"Hello?" asked a soft voice. Nicole turned and noticed a petite, homely brunette girl. She spoke again just as quietly. "Who are you?"

Nicole stood up straight. "I brought something for Marie." She dug into her pocket, glad to know that there was in fact someone checking in on the baby. Nicole pulled out the toy car and the girl took it, looking at it suspiciously.

"The edges are sharp. She's only a baby."

Nicole's optimism turned. _Wouldn't want to hurt your precious chances at a cure, would we?_ But she tried to remain civil. "So, are you one of the scientists working on Marie?"

"No, I don't have the head for that. I can't even write," the girl answered timidly and took Marie up in her arms. "The baby still needs to breastfeed, and that responsibility is mine. I'd like to feed her now, so if you could go..."

Nicole left the woman and the small child in her arms to make her way to one last stop before she got out of this hellhole. It had been a long time since she'd seen Midea, but Nicole was sure if there was one woman she could talk to about her frustrations, it was her. After all, she'd been the one to ask Nicole to bring toys for Marie out of concern for the child. Nicole had heard that Midea had taken ill, but it had sounded like gossip at the time. Nichole had just never found the time to get away from her work to investigate.

Slowly opening the door to Midea's quarters, she saw that the light within had been dimmed to barely a flicker, and that a figure was laying motionless in the bed. The air was still and hot.

"Midea?" Nicole asked tentatively. The heap of dirty cotton clothes shifted slightly.

"Nick?"

The blonde moved across the room to the side of the bed, taking the woman's hands in her. They were thin, like the rest of her, and cold despite the warmth of the room. The whites of her eyes had yellowed. The older woman spoke.

"I'm going to die tonight," she wheezed.

"How did this happen so suddenly?" Nicole asked sadly, yet in truth she wasn't that sad. Despite the fact that the woman was dying, and wasn't oblivious to how Marie was being treated, Midea had still been in favour of kidnapping to further her own ends. But what was one life for the freedom of many? And after all, if it came down to hating Midea, Nicole was going to have to hate herself as well.

Nicole wasn't sad, but she was angry. Angry that the only other person in the Pitt with an ounce of sense, or empathy, was about to die.

"Radiation," Midea finally managed to whisper. She shuddered under the blonde girl's touch. "Thank God it wasn't the mutation."

"But if it's radiation... I mean, there is medicine for that."

"Nicole, please. Now that you're here, I have something we have to talk about, and it's not an old woman's health. It's about Wernher... and Marie."

Nicole nodded knowingly. "I know. It's all gone to hell."

"You have to take Marie and get her far away from here, my child. Take her to that place where you come from. They're going to kill her with those tests, and they don't care. I think... I think it might have been better here when Ashur was still alive."

Nicole gaped.

"No, listen to me," the woman struggled to get up. Once Nicole helped her to sit up, and she'd taken a sip of some murky water, Midea continued. "When we had Ashur, it was easy to hate him. He worked us like dogs, but Wernher does the same thing, and gets away with it under the disguise of our own self-interest. And that poor child... she just lays there all day. At least... at least when she had her mother around, there was also someone with knowledge of science to work on the cure. I don't think they've come any closer to a cure in the last two months. Just closer to killing that little girl."

Nicole stared at the woman. She knew why Midea had cornered herself off from the meek medicines available. Midea saw Wernher for what he had become, and hated him for it. At least Midea wouldn't sell her soul for him.

"How?" Nicole found her voice hiding in a small corner. Midea chattered away her plan almost happily, and when she was finished, sighed deeply and closed her quivering eyelids. Nicole knew it was true the woman would die that night. She wanted to stay, to hold her hands and wait until the citizens of the Pitt had laid themselves down in their cots; even Wernher found his bed at night. Nicole wanted to stay with the woman so she had someone there when she died. But Midea told her to be off.

"You need to gather your weapons. You might still have a fight before you," Midea urged as Nicole collected herself and moved to leave. She took a last look over her shoulder, as it was not in the plan to make it back this way once she had the baby.

"I'm sorry," Nicole said. She opened the door, and the light that poured through highlighted the lines on the older woman's face.

"Go," Midea said in a tone without forgiveness for the blonde, or for herself. "You'll have your redemption when you've rescued that baby."

Sometimes Nicole really wondered how the hell she got herself into these quests.

Night was still in the Pitt. Wernher imposed long hours on his workers, but he didn't dare reinstate the night shift, lest it appear to the masses that the old days were coming back. So Nicole found movement to Haven unhindered. Of course, the only interference she might have faced had it been day was a friendly hello.

Due to the smooth sailing thus far, Nicole hadn't expected the door guard to be there. But there he was, leaning against the wall, cracking his fingers one by one. He stiffened his posture and turned on the defence at the sound of her approaching steps, but taking in the sight of her, he relaxed, and let a wry smile spread across his lips. Nicole wasn't the dirty mill-worker she'd been 6 hours ago. Nicole had suited up, as it were. Despite perhaps not being the most practical of clothing choice, her curvaceous form was fitted with sleek, tight-fitting leather. Practical, no. Distracting? Oh yes.

"So, you got a name?" Nicole asked casually, and pulled her hand through her blonde locks.

"Damn, you clean up good," growled the door guard as Nicole recoiled inwardly at his attempt at a compliment. "Are you here to see the Boss?"

"Actually, I was hoping to buy a boy a drink," Nicole lifted her eyebrows and spoke in a tone which suggested the guard himself, and the flash of her eyes made it unmistakable. "What say we take a dip in Wernher's private stash? I won't tell if you don't."

Apparently it wasn't a stretch to assume Wernher had a horde of alcohol for himself. As soon as the guard turned to open the doors, Nicole pulled out her silenced pistol and neatly popped him thrice in the back. Black-widow indeed. Moving quickly through the rooms to the lab, she was glad that Wernher's room was on the other side of the compound. The floor wasn't exactly without clutter, and she found herself stepping on a lot of cracking glass.

As she approached the crib, perhaps Nicole shouldn't have been surprised to find it empty. After all, the tiny child was so often in neglect, why should anyone care to move her for the night?

Nicole whipped around, pistol before her as she heard a step from behind. It was the petite woman from earlier in the day, and in her arms lay Marie, silent. The blonde's mind began to race as she tried to figure out how she'd get the baby away from the woman without waking up the entire household.

"You are Nicole?" asked the small woman.

"Yes," Nicole answered, mind too preoccupied with escape plans to be surprised. The woman breathed a sigh of relief.

"Good. Midea said you would come."

"Midea?" Nicole repeated. She thought for a moment. "Wait, you're here to help?"

"Yes," the woman nodded. "Midea didn't tell you?"

"Not exactly," Nicole shook her head. "Give me Marie and I'll be out of here."

"No!" the girl gasped, clinging to the baby. "I'm coming with you."

"What? I wasn't told anything about that," Nicole said, though she was fairly sure this wasn't part of Midea's plan to begin with. It also didn't look like arguing would work, so she attempted to appeal to the girl with reason. "Look, no offence, and I mean that sincerely... but you'll slow me down, and I should already be out of here. If Wernher's men come, they'll kill me, and I'm that baby's last chance to get out of here."

"Well, no offence to you," the woman countered accusingly. "But you don't exactly look like the type with a lot of motherly instincts. You might be able to get her out of here, but you wouldn't even know what to do with her after that."

"Good point," Nicole said before she was able to stop herself. It was one of her defining features: a mouth that ran freely without interest in what her brain had to say. "Fine, we'll go. You know how to handle a pistol?"

The girl shook her head. "Never even held one before."

"Fantastic," Nicole said drolly. She pocketed her pistol and pulled the Chinese Assault Rifle off her back. She motioned for the brunette to follow.

"No, let me lead," said the girl already passing the blonde. "I know something that will take us right to the gate, and we can slip out. It takes us under the ground."

They stumbled through the darkness out of the building and towards a tunnel hidden by sheets of metallic debris. It was about half of Nicole's height, but both women would be able to crawl through with ease, as her companion had created a sling to keep Marie close and snug to her body. As they made their way through the passageway to freedom, Nicole spoke.

"These tunnels are fantastic." she said to herself.

"Not exactly slowing you down, am I?" chided the girl without a trace of cynicism.

"When were these constructed? What were they used for originally?" Nicole asked, glad the black that surrounded them hid the embarrassment which was plain on her face.

"We made them years ago to help in our escape from Ashur. Many of us were spared the life of slavery because of these tunnels."

"You don't say," Nicole said thoughtfully, and saw that a dot of light was approaching them. The exit was near. "So if you knew about this, then why did you never use it to escape?"

"It was dangerous for us to use them often, because we were afraid it would call attention from Ashur's men. And I had a duty to my people. There were many who came to Ashur after a lifetime of servitude in other cities. I always felt they deserved to be freed before me."

Even if the girl had never held a gun in her life, and couldn't write, Nicole was glad to have her along. Moments later they were running through the night towards the train tunnel that would take them to freedom.

And as early morning approached, Midea could hear quiet whispering beyond her door.

"Just come on in already, boys. Did Wernher send you?"

It was the man himself who opened the door, backed by several cronies in various workers garb. He bid them stay out and closed the door behind himself.

"Where'd she take her, Midea?" Wernher growled as he approached the bed. Midea sat up with what strength she had, but wished she had enough to stand up to him.

"You're not even going to inquire about my health? I'm dying, Wernher. Like everyone else here."

"Tell me where they went, and I can get you medicine. It's the radiation, right? C'mon, girl, don't make this hard on yourself."

"Go blow a Trog!" Midea spat, and having never said something so foul in her life, she was glad she had reserved the honour for such an occasion.

"Fine. Rot then, you old hag," Wernher snarled. "You still have some time left, I can tell. You think it'll be the radiation or the starvation, huh?"

Midea could hear Wernher tell his men once he'd left that no one was allowed in that room. Midea was contagious, and whatever she had would kill anyone else. Wernher didn't know how right he was. Sometimes nobility was catching.

The woman's gaze flickered towards the door, then she closed her lids to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't as grandiose as Nicole might have imagined. They had been approaching the end of their journey to the Capital Wasteland from the Pitt via the train tunnel cart sometime in the early morning hours when the sounds of an easy wind echoed against the walls. This should have been followed by angry snatching at tears as Nicole tried to hide her sudden outpour of emotion upon the sight of her homeland, but she was too damned tired to cry. She'd peddled for hours without stopping, and received little aid from the girl travelling with her. The short brunette had a good amount of muscle on her, having been raised in the Pitt as a slave, but as soon as Nicole had the petite woman's help for a moment, she was turning back to coddle Marie who was strapped snuggly against her breast.

She had been right about one thing, though: Nicole wouldn't have had a clue what to do with the precious bundle on her own. It had been a very long time since she d traveled long distances with anyone, and even then Jericho had managed to grind on her nerves with his sarcastic narrative of their journey, his running tally of bullets she wasted due to poor aim, and the constant reminder that Jericho was on his last pack of cigarettes (and it was always the last pack). Nicole hadn't been able to shut him up, how would she be able to keep a baby quiet when she was trying to hold it in one hand, and take a deathclaw down with the other? How the hell would she have noticed the on-coming packs of feral dogs if she'd been fussing over a crying infant?

Loud shots rang out as Nicole began mowing down the half-dozen snarling and snapping mutts as they slowly approached the women. In no time they were dead, leaving their lunch half finished. Of course, what they'd been picking at was mostly bones.

"What are... oh no!" Nicole's companion was turning away and emitting a throaty gurgle as she tried to suppress the urge to be sick. Nicole herself recoiled for a moment, and then chided herself as she realized how soft she'd gotten in her time away from DC. With confidence mustered, Nicole took strides towards that which the feral dogs had been busying themselves with, and indeed it was the slavers she had killed some months back before descending into the Pitt. She could tell by the shredded clothing trying to cover the bleaching bones. There were dozens of various footprints kicked into the sand and dug into the mud around the bones as well. Nicole eyed a particular pair of tracks, turned stiffly like a well-trained soldier, and towed the wet-nurse along as she picked up her own pace to a healthy march.

"Why are we moving so quickly?" the girl asked shakily as they moved over large boulders. "We have to walk carefully. The baby-"

"If we don't move quickly, we're going to die, and we can't help that baby if we're dead," Nicole assured the girl, still pulling her along. "I saw yao guai tracks back there. They weren't exactly fresh, but I don't want to risk meeting any, either. Seems here up in the rocky north they like to travel in pairs, sometimes even in a group of three."

"What are yao guai?" asked the girl who was, at best, managing poorly across the jagged terrain. "Sounds exotic."

Nicole guided the girl down a rather steep descent, and turned to give her arm for support. "They're like a bad Jet-induced nightmare version of those teddy bears I'd bring for Marie, but about a hundred times bigger and, like I said, don't always travel alone."

"So... On a scale of 1 to 10 compared to Trogs, how would you rate them?"

"On a Trog Scale, I'd say about a thousand," Nicole affirmed thoughtfully as she stopped to survey the relatively smooth path ahead of them.

"God, Wernher was right, then," the brunette murmured under her breath as she came to the blonde's side. Nicole turned.

"About what?"

"Well," the girl started hesitantly with a roll of her shoulders. "A lot of people back in the Pitt asked about you, and that brought up the question about where you came from. Wernher said that this place was crawling with dozens of crazy, fucked-up mutated animals that were even worse than Trogs."

"Yeah, well, I've got to say that if Wernher ever told the truth once in his goddamned life, it would have been about this place," Nicole nodded sadly and started walking again. "Home sweet home," she added rather brightly as an after thought.

When they had been travelling for a lot longer then it had seemed, the girl spoke up again. "Where are we going? Is there a city near?"

"No. You're not going to find anything here that's like the Pitt. We've got a few settlements here and there, but for the most part, life is spent moving between them, making a living under the open sky." Nicole was beginning to feel like her old self as something about this land comfortably crept back into her bones. She could still feel her hands vibrating from the recoil of her rifle, and the dead feral dogs were already a memory. It had been two months since she'd shot anything, and it had been without hesitation that she had laid those dogs to rest. It was something she actually had control over, unlike her memories of futility and frustration back from the Pitt. Nicole was finally getting her confidence back.

"Yes, well, that's all good and fine, but that isn't going to work for a baby," the brunette pointed out, breaking her guide's train of thought. Nicole turned to look over her shoulder.

"So what's your name, anyways?"

"Don. As in the short form for Donald. I was named after my dad." The girl obviously had supplied that explanation several times before.

"Well then, Don, I promise you that where we're going, you are going to love it," Nicole said happily. "It's just a pit-stop, but it's beautiful compared to all this sand and dried-up crap that passes for vegetation."

"Are you kidding?" Don asked, speeding up to walk in-stride with Nicole. "This place is amazing. I mean, I never even saw the outside of the city. But it's a paradise. It's hard to believe Wernher could have been right about this place."

Nicole hadn't thought of it like that. Everything about the area was familiar, from the way the feral mutts had moved in on them to the slope of the rocks and the way the wind kicked up dust. She'd forgotten that though she hadn't seen the hazy blue sky for two months, Don had never seen them at all. And though Nicole felt like she owned this land, it wasn't exactly high up on her list of preferred places to be. There were always the memories of the comfort of Vault 101, or her cozy, incredibly secure cottage down in Point Lookout. If not for the handful of unfulfilled promises that had her darting across the desert on inane quests, she'd probably be in Point Lookout now. But all Don had to compare this place to was the Pitt, the epitome of putrescence.

"Well, 'guai and raiders and rad-scorps are only trying to kill you half of the time. The rest of the time it's actually pretty okay." Nicole was wondering whether or not to tell Don about her true origins; that infamous tale of abandonment and woe which everyone and their grandmother knew thanks to Three Dog and his penchant for embellishment and broadcasting theatrics. Of course, that version of the truth wasn't entirely true, and even when she was thoroughly drunk Nicole avoided that conversation, no matter how many bottles Belle Bonny lined up and Nicole knocked back.

Despite the blonde's dreamy tone, Don didn't seem as convinced. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but with that much trouble out there... how far exactly is our destination? Where are we going?"

The skyline was becoming familiar as they approached their destination from the south end at the bottom of the rocky hills. Nicole was sure that she recognized several of the dried-up trees whose leafless limbs reached up, clawing at the sky, pleading for rain. Even the rocks and sand underfoot seemed to welcome her.

"As I said, we're making a pit-stop. I'm hoping to maybe pick up an extra pair of eyes. And another set of hands familiar with a rifle. Not that I'm adverse to your decision not to carry a gun, you have the baby to look after." Nicole noticed that Don's doubting eyebrow line did not appear to be impressed with that answer. "What?"

"I've asked you twice now where we're going, like as in an end destination. You haven't given me an answer."

Biting her lip, Nicole turned back to look ahead of herself, noting the patches of vibrant, budding vegetation that were growing farther and farther down the hills with every time she returned here.

"You don't have a clue where we're going to go, do you?" Don asked loudly.

"No, not really," Nicole finally answered her. The small brunette sighed.

"Great."

Great was the thought of being surrounded by tall, luscious trees that released a fragrant perfume while a cool wind on a hot afternoon worked its way through the leaves. Great was waking up to see dew clinging to the thick, healthy lawn of grass that your makeshift cot rested on, creating a comfortable mattress. Great was (relatively) radiation-free water to wash your face with in the morning, plus fruit for breakfast, and no one trying to shoot you, or telling you that you should leave right now. Great was also usually the reception she got when she approached Oasis, but today there were three people standing guard and they all had their assault rifles in hand.

"Um, hi," Nicole waved at the Branchtenders Linden, Cypress and Maple who gripped their weapons tight.

"Branchtender Larkspur, why have you not only shown this outsider the way to our boarders, but also brought her directly to our gate?" asked Cypress authoritively as Nicole winced at the name she had been given honorarily by the Treeminders of Oasis. Not for the first time did she wish she had picked something less... lame.

"Does it look like she's going to hurt anyone?" Nicole asked incredulously. "You know I'd never do anything to bring danger here. Just let us in to see Harold, I'm sure we can sort this out nice and easy."

"Only those who are baptized in the ritual purge of evil may see the Great One-"

"Okay, yes, you're right," Nicole said, cutting off Maple before she went through the whole spiel. "Only I'll go and talk with Harold, but this woman is not going to harm you. We've been walking for a while, and we need a safe place to rest. C'mon guys. Why are you being so friggin' uptight?"

"Cypress and Maple are still pissed off that the gifts of the Great One are spreading more each day throughout the wasteland," Linden explained, jerking his thumb in the direction of his fellow Treeminders. His choice of speech was that of a person no where near as mentally warped as, say, Cypress, but he still believed in his convictions as a member of Oasis. "Plus," he added with a lift of his brow, "We've had a lot of traffic this way lately."

"We've 'had a lot of traffic' because the Great One's gifts are attracting them here!" Cypress growled. "Soon we will be overrun with the scum of the wastes, and that will give way to-"

Cypress's rantings had woken Marie. Everyone turned to look at the deceivingly small source of the ear-shattering cries while Don rocked and cooed the little girl. Her fussing only persisted.

"They will hear that for miles!" Cypress yelped. He clearly believed the very hounds of Hell were pacing at the base of the gorge, licking their chops, starved for the blood of screwy, tree-worshipping cult members who had branches stuck in their hair. On purpose.

"Exactly!" Linden agreed enthusiastically and pushed the heavy doors inward. "Come, Branchtender Larkspur and friend."

With the door secured tightly behind them, Nicole made her way to the Grove where the high-and-mightily glorified ghoul called Harold resided as a prisoner to a mutation more wayword than the norm, and Don was shown to a comfortable spot so that she might tend to Marie.

As the afternoon waned, an ominous wind rustled in the leaves throughout the enclosure of Oasis, and the evening fires were started. Blankets woven of coarse but exceedingly warm hemp were brought to Don as she wondered if Nicole hadn't slipped away somehow. It had been hours since she'd seen her guide, and the blonde was, after all, Don's only hope to survive in this new, dangerous world.

Nicole, of course, had not left. In fact, she'd hardly gotten anywhere.

"So you see, Harold, I need your help. What this child could do for the wasteland... for humanity... it's huge!" Nicole was pacing before the hulking sentient 'tree' and talking more with her hands than with actual words. "I know I'm not my father. I don't know exactly how this works. But that kid holds the key to eradicating mutation, radiation, all of that crap!" she turned to look up at the unintelligible face blinking slowly at her. "Do you understand what I mean?"

"Well," Harold started slowly. "What I think you're saying is... uh..."

"Harold!" Nicole cried. "I've already explained this four times; don't make me do it a fifth."

"Now hold your horses, youngster," Harold said with a wheezing cough. "You don't become mayor with having brahmin shit for brains. You need one of my Treeminders to go along with you as a guard, right?"

"Yes!" Nicole smiled triumphantly. Harold managed to manipulate his stiff facial features into a rather devious look.

"Well, take 'em all!" he said with a steady laugh. Even Nicole giggled a little bit. Naturally the only person in this paradise of green who had a sense of humor was the giant talking tree.

"No thanks, I think I'll just take the one. Linden, if that's alright."

"Which one is that? Brotherhood member, right?"

"Well... yes," Nicole said, deciding not to complicate things. One evening after Nicole had decided to fulfill a humble request of Leafmother Laurel, she found herself lounging around a comfortable fire, wearing a toga of sticks and grass, and sharing a cup of slightly-gone, slightly-alcoholic fruit juice of some kind with Branchtender Linden. As it turned out, Linden had been a member of the Outcasts; a faction that had moved away from the Brotherhood of Steel due to conflicting views about exactly what the duty of their order was. Of course, in his time as a Treeminder, Linden had recalled his compassion and empathy for that which the Brotherhood's exalted technology was supposed to be working for: the people. Linden agreed that yes, perhaps the Outcasts' views were more in line with the original oath of the Brotherhood of Steel, but he didn't really care for either sides' ethics anymore.

Parting ways with Harold, Bob and Herb, Nicole moved to the main apartments of Oasis where she found the man of the hour, Linden, sitting cross-legged with Don and from the sounds of it, Don was enthusiastically telling her life's story, or at least some of it. Marie had settled down and was sleeping quietly in her nurse-maid's arms.

"Say, Linden, can I talk to you for a minuet?" Nicole motioned for the man to join her in a stroll and she guided them to the sleeping area where cots were lined along the grass.

"Yes, Branchtender Larkspur?" asked Linden earnestly. The woman made a face.

"You aren't actually going to keep calling me that, are you?" Nicole asked. "Because I'm going to hit you every time you say it, and your shoulder is going to get really blue really fast."

"You chose it, didn't you?" asked Linden with a smile. "Am I to assume The Great One has given his blessing for me to accompany you?"

"Oh yeah," Nicole said with a private roll of her eyes. "But I have to ask you something first. A favor, actually. Assuming you haven't already, don't tell Don that you used to be Outcast, and don't tell her where we're going."

"Lie to that kind woman?" Linden looked confused.

"Not lie. Just don't tell her the whole truth."

The passive characteristics of Branchtender Linden were replaced by whatever man he must have been once. "When I came here, I gave up lies, mindless violence and all that which makes the wasteland cruel."

"And if you're going to travel with me I'm going to need you to carry that load again, and more," Nicole said forwardly. "Don is from the Pitt, as you know by now. Did she explain to you what the Brotherhood did there?"

"No, but I heard of the Pitt from those in the Order," Linden shrugged casually.

"So you heard that they went in, wiped out the mutated population, and paved the way for a man to set him self up as a tyrant and overlord? A man who used slavery, and he was ex-Brotherhood, for Christ's sake. I know for a fact Wernher told the people about that," the woman added the last bit as a quiet after-thought. He may have been back in the Pitt, but with his expert manipulation of the truth, it was as though Wernher was there on her shoulder urging her to fail.

"Who is this Wernher?"

"Doesn't matter," Nicole said with a shake of her head. "Point is, if Don knew who you were, or where we're going, she'd flip. I'd rather not have to use force to get her there."

"We're going to the Citadel, aren't we?" asked Linden. He sighed and sat down on one of the cots. Linden looked up at her with the inoccense of a child. "If we do that, they'll make a slave of that baby, just like they did at the Pitt. Don told me about that. What a terrible thing."

"Did she also tell you what that kid means to medicine? To science?" Nicole took a spot across from Linden. It was the first time she had been able to sit down in some time, and she hadn't realized how tired her legs were. Nicole massaged her muscles as Linden watched her.

"She did, in her way. And I fully understand the implications. But Marie is still just a baby," Linden pressed. He looked away. "She doesn't deserve that."

"If you don't agree, why are you going to help at all?" Nicole asked with a grin. She wasn't even sure why that smile was there: she wasn't happy. And she knew the answer wasn't going to change that.

"Because it is the bidding of the Great One," Linden answered simply. He stood and left Nicole alone to tend to her aches and pains. If only the soul was so easy to sooth.

Within the hour the sun had set, and the Treeminders were finding their cots. It had been an entertaining evening, with the citizens of Oasis glad to share their stories and wisdom with Don, once they had warmed up to the girl, this due in part to Harold's insistence to Tree Father Birch that she wasn't a danger. Little Yew liked Marie instantly, and Don even let the girl hold the baby. Yew insisted on sleeping near the child that evening, and when Nichole was settling into the bed made for her, sleep descended on her quicker than she would have liked. As her eyes closed, she would have sworn she saw a blurred shape looming over her.

"Goodnight, doggie," spat Wernher as he kicked the dying body of a young feral pup that had been hanging around the bodies of what must have been its parents. Six feral mutts lay scattered around the ground, all by clean bullets to the skull. The pup somehow escaped the carnage, maybe by luck. Perhaps who ever had shot its parents looked with pity on the young.

Not Wernher.

"It'll take forever to find them in all that."

It was Tom's complaining that rasied above the din of Wernher's thoughts. Tom was pretty green, and hadn't even had a proper breaking in as a slave under Ashur's regime, but to Wernher he'd proven very loyal. Now, however, he was over-looking the dark, vast hills of the Capital Wasteland with apprehension.

"Don't worry, boys, we'll have that kid back by this time tomorrow," Wernher said confidently as he stared off in the direction that the freshest tracks moved. "They're maybe 6 hours ahead of us. I'm sure they went into these hills, but there's nothing up that way but terrain too dangerous to take a baby into. Tomorrow morning we go to the bottom of the rocks and wait for them to come to us."

Wernher started back towards the four blinding white lights that belonged to the group's motorcycles. Had they not had these at their disposal, undoubtedly the group would still be walking through the tunnels and probably would have continued to do so for some days. If Wernher hadn't had several points of interest to attend to, no doubt they'd have Marie back already, too. But he knew just how quick and easy it was for someone else to step up and take charge, and Wernher was adamant that he put someone he trusted in charge while he'd be away, no matter how long or short his absence would be. Of course he had to deal with Midea, but the old bitch was dead before they'd managed to find enough microfusion cells to juice up their motorcycles.

"I hope you're right," chimed the only girl in the group. Her name was Randi, and she'd do just about anything for Wernher. She believed anything he said as well, which meant the ground upon which she was standing was likely to swallow her up at any moment. Wernher referred to her as 'one of the boys' because she liked it; she had a bit of a crush on Wernher and it wasn't that subtle.

"Let's all get some shut-eye," Wernher said as they began rolling out their bedding. He wanted to go into that black and see if he couldn't flesh out Nicole and her charge, but he also knew how treacherous the rocks were.

"Wern, how do you know the land so well?" asked Tom innocently as they were all getting comfortable in their cots.

"Well," Wernher said as he stared up at the stars, hands folded on his chest, musing over the fact that he hadn't miss those damn things at all. "I was born here. Know this place like the back of my hand. So don't you worry and get some sleep, boys. We have messy work ahead of us tomorrow."


	3. Chapter 3

In her 22 years, Nicole had had the luxury of greeting the day in many different settings and in many different ways. For more than half of her life, morning had jolted through her spine along with the screeching 7:00 AM wake-up call of the Vault's alarm system. That was followed by a warm communal breakfast in the cafeteria sitting across from her father, and chatting with her old friend Amata Almodovar about homework. Often the day's early hours found Nicole with her head in a bucket as she emptied her stomach's contents while cursing herself for letting Belle Bonny in Rivet City sell her so much damned Scotch. As for the past two months, morning had just blended in with the rest of the day, for the Pitt's eternally glowing fires made it hard for night to ever fall in the city.

By far the best mornings were in Oasis. Breakfast was always something that resembled a slightly mutated apple, along with a mug of tea. Nicole had never tasted tea before, and had yet to find it anywhere else in the Wasteland; usually if you wanted a hot drink it was very bad coffee. And of course there were the surprisingly comfortable cots.

Nicole had never risen before the Treeminders, and that wasn't about to change today. She found them as she always did, cross-legged in a circle and meditating on the sun's earliest blushes, while the young Sapling Yew fidgeted just a little. The only difference was that today her companion, Don, was sitting and watching with a look of deep interest. Little Marie was helping herself to breakfast at her nurse-maid's breast and Nicole, never having seen this act of bonding before, didn't know how to avert her gaze as quickly as she could without looking like an idiot. Luckily the meditation circle was breaking up, and everyone was concerned with giving Branchtender Linden their sincere farewells. He shared a private breakfast with his family of Treeminders while Nicole and Don sat at the side, eating their own meal.

"Leaf Mother Laurel has prepared some provisions for us," Don noted over her steaming mug of tea. She looked to Marie, who was now laying on a blanket, kicking her legs and wiggling her fingers. The baby relished in her freedom.

"She's quite spry, isn't she?" Nicole asked as she watched the child.

"Marie has been up for hours, so she should sleep for most of the day."

"Good," Nicole said, slapping her knees and standing. "By tomorrow afternoon at the latest I'm hope we'll be at where we're going, but we're probably going to have to keep moving until then."

"So you have a destination in mind," Don stated with a tinge of relief.

"Yes," Nicole said. An image appeared in her mind of a town that was well-protected by its high walls and inhabited by friendly people who were keen on gossip, and bought most of their goods from a crazy red-headed shop keeper who, in her spare time, was an aspiring mad-scientist.

That was the story, anyways. In truth it was far from accurate. Nicole was afraid of what might happen if she told Don where they were actually headed, for the nurse-maid had made it clear that the she felt the best thing for the baby was a safe, secure environment, away from needles and tests. But Nicole knew that Marie was just too important to science to hide away. She had seen great sacrifices be made for mankind, and this little girl was the key to unfathomable betterment in the lives of those all over the world. Nicole couldn't let her father's work be undone or setback because of sentiments. There was no secret regret weighing on her subconscious over taking Marie to the Citadel, and this was because her father had taught her to have the heart of a scientist, even if her mind was just a step or two behind. This in fact was the first thing that had soothed the fiery guilt she had been tied to since her part in the events at the Pitt. Nicole knew she was finally doing the right thing. And after all, there was no safer place for a child to grow up short of a Vault.

Don and Nicole met Linden at the gate. He joined them outfitted for the journey, and for a brief second Nicole felt a flash of anger warm her face. Linden was dressed in what must have been his power armour from his days with the Outcasts, and the blonde had asked the Treeminder specifically to avoid anything Brotherhood related. Nicole could remember Linden offering the suit to her in gratitude for her work in Oasis, but at the time she hadn't had the means of taking it with her. Now she wished she had.

"Nice suit," Nicole muttered as she tried to stare the man down.

"It was the best thing I had for this kind of work," Linden said, and Nicole noted that he also had a laser rifle strapped to his back. "Unless you think hemp would be better suited against the blades of a deathclaw."

"No, no, you're right..." Nicole let it hang as she turned and led the group down the gorge. She was followed by Don who had manipulated the cloth in a way that let Marie face out and have her limbs free while she was also secured tightly against her nurse-maid's chest. Linden took the rear.

The trip which normally might have taken her a day was obviously going to take much longer. Nicole was used to jogging around the Wasteland, not moving around at a saunter. Of course, it was no use trying to go at a pace that would just upset the baby.

It was inevitable, however, that Marie was going to fuss no matter what at some point. When they had been walking for two hours according to her Pipboy, Nicole chided inwardly at her previous observation that Marie seemed a passive child. The blonde tightened her grip around her rifle as Marie huffed and sobbed while Don tried to sooth her by speaking quietly to her. Nicole knew there was no point in reminding anyone that a screaming baby was boundless to attract some sort of unwanted attention, and then everyone was going to be crying. But as Don began to bounce Marie ever so slightly and hum a soft tune, the fussing subsided.

"She likes music?" Nicole asked brightly. Although she never travelled with her radio on, Nicole fiddled around with her Pipboy and as soon as the Andrew Sisters started singing, the baby's eyes became very large and round. Linden laughed a deep laugh as the baby started doing a little jig in her constraints along with Don's help.

"I'm amazed at how clear your reception in," Linden remarked. "The last time I was out here, the best we would get was static on the radios."

Nicole silently appreciated that Linden had managed to avoid saying exactly under what pretext he might have heard the broadcasts. "Yeah, well, Three Dog had some trouble with the satellite. I replaced it, and voila: loud-mouthed disc-jockies from DC to Girdershade."

When Roy Brown's Butcher Pete started playing, Nicole couldn't help but hum along, though she tried to keep it to herself. This was followed by a smattering of quiet singing from Linden. By the end of the song, the two were singing loudly in unison, and Nicole couldn't remember the last time she'd been as damned _happy _as she was at that moment. Nicole sighed. It wasn't an over-bubbling of joy that made her forget the seriousness of what she was doing. It was merely a contented joy and it reminded her that the Pitt was behind her, and that she was allowed to be happy again.

"This music is just amazing!" Don laughed when the song and the singing and the unabashed giggling subsided. "All we had back in the Pitt was Ashur's propaganda speeches. You can really twist to this stuff."

"We should actually turn this thing off: it's gotten me into more trouble than its worth in the past," Nicole lamented as she clicked some buttons on her Pipboy and silence fell over them. She wasn't entirely sure if she was talking about the music its self or Three Dog.

"Yes, you should," Linden said distractedly. Nicole looked over her shoulder to see he had stopped in his tracks. Before she could question him, he was pointing off into the distance. "Movement. In the hills."

Linden was right. Nicole had been too preoccupied to notice dots quickly dancing on the horizon. The nurse-maid instinctively brought her arms around the baby.

"Raiders," Nicole spat, and brought her rifle to her eyes. Through the dim scope, she managed to get a clearer look at the men quickly closing the distance between. Noting their clothing and the way they moved, the blonde cursed. "Slavers. Even better."

"No!" Don cried out in disbelief.

"Get behind those rocks and try to stay out of sight," Nicole instructed, pointing to a pile of rocky debris to the North. She pulled her pistol out of its holster and held it towards the shaking woman. "And take this."

"But I don't-"

"You're about to learn very quickly."

Nicole had taken out about as many slavers on her own before. Before, as in many months earlier. Hell, it felt like an eternity. But with Linden's weapon and training they were going to be a force to be reckoned with. She hoped.

"How many?" Linden asked.

"Seven," Nicole answered. "But slavers aren't raiders."

"Nope," Linden affirmed with a glint in his eye. "They're more fun."

He charged ahead and Nicole followed, rifle out before her and leaving empty cartridges in her wake.

The blonde woman had never been as partial to kill-shots as she probably should have been. But it was on her first day in the wastes that Nicole learnt it didn't take much to cripple a man, and they usually just crawled away after that. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that she knew her father, as a doctor, had taken an oath to help people. James would have been taking bullets out of people, not putting them in. At least that's how she'd felt in the early days. When nostalgia struck, Nicole dreamed that if the man had lived he might have spent his days moving around the wastes, going from one settlement to another and doing work for room and board. If only she'd paid more attention to what her father had tried to show her; she could have been doing the same thing.

As a bullet grazed hotly passed her leg, Nicole swore at herself for fantasizing about a life where her father was still alive. Daddy wouldn't want to see what she was about to do, anyways. The man who landed the shot was still moving towards her, but Nicole brought her Chinese Assault Rifle up and fired, and that stopped his running right away. The rapid succession of bullets ripped into the man's head and pulverized it. His face just wasn't there anymore.

Snapping around and hobbling back to where the main firefight was, Nicole saw that Linden was firing all around himself, the red light of his laser rifle burning through flesh and torching the dry wasteland grasses. One man who had bore the brunt of Linden's frustrations was lying on the ground, an arm and a leg damaged badly, but the fucker was still dragging himself to his combat shotgun. Nicole ran up, kicked it out of reach, and smacked his face with the butt of her rifle as though she was golfing. Golf was a sport she'd read about in a magazine back at Abraham Washington's setup in Rivet City, but it hadn't looked nearly as fun as this. Nicole managed to shoot a few more men down before she realized that she herself was floating.

"Wha...?" Nicole looked down at her hands and noticed that her rifle wasn't there anymore, if indeed it had ever been. She also wasn't wearing her armour. A man across from her was. Was this a dream?

"No, fucktard," an angry voice snapped. "You got Mezzed. You know what that is, don't you, girlie?"

Nicole shook her head to clear the cobwebs and realized yes, that was exactly what had happened, and it had seemed like it had happened in seconds. Somehow she'd missed the slaver with the Mesmetron, a very unique weapon that Nicole had always wished she'd never be at the receiving end of. She couldn't give the remaining slavers the satisfaction of her cursing out loud, so she observed their current situation silently. They hadn't moved anywhere. The bodies of the slavers she and Linden had killed were in a heap, their weapons gone, and anything else of value on their person stripped. Nicole's stuff was replaced with slave's clothing, and Linden no longer had his power armour. Her arms were free, as were Don's and the ex-Outcast's, but they all had the shock collars on. Don was weeping violently as she gripped Marie close.

"Looks like we don't get to drag her," commented a slaver sadly as he looked at Nicole. "Too bad. Well, let's get going, chumps."

Nicole knew exactly where they were headed because she'd taken this route several times before. Oasis was frighteningly close to Paradise Falls. And the parallels in the names when compared to how different the locations were was just annoying.

As the hour passed, Nicole was at a loss as to how she should play the situation. There were three slavers left, and they had arguably better guns now that they had helped themselves to what their catches-of-the-day had been packing. On top of that, Nicole had seen the fancy work of the shock collars once before and she did not feel like experiencing the pain first hand. The blonde had a very bad feeling she was going to beg or whine at some point before the day was up.

"So, how are you treating my baby?" Nicole casually asked the man who was carrying the Mesmetron. The slaver had a stunned look on his face. "That's right," Nicole continued. "I did all the field work for that thing. Handles nice, eh?"

"Handled you good enough," the leader of the slavers commented darkly. "Another word out of you and you can start breaking in that collar, too."

Nicole fell silent. It wasn't long until they were approaching the entrance to the slavers' encampment, and there was good ol' Grouse, the one-man greeting party for Paradise Falls, leaning back in his chair, smoking a cigarette. When he noticed exactly who the fair-haired slave with the smart-ass attitude was, he started laughing loudly.

"Holy hell, Nick, I've got to say that I've never seen a collar look so pretty as it does on you."

"Up your ass, Grouse!" Nicole countered good-naturedly. "Say, can you spot a girl some money to buy her freedom?"

"I don't think all the Falls is worth what we'll be selling you for," Grouse said with a grin. He gave her a little wave as the group was herded through the front door. "See you on the inside!"

"Yeah, okay," Nicole said quietly and, not for the first time that day, felt her body moving without consideration for what her brain actually wanted. Some small part of her believed she could over-power the two slavers which guarded the entrance. Later she would chalk it up to the Mesmetron frying her brain. Nicole vaulted her self at one of the nearer slavers, but before she knew it, her whole body started to spasm and she passed out. When Nicole came to, there was the sharp taste of blood on her tongue, and all the pain of a plasma burn didn't compare to the sight before her.

"Oh, no," Nicole forced herself not to vomit and tried to make her feet move so she could stand. Her body just felt too heavy. "Oh, lord, no..."

"Fuckin' let me at her!"

Luckily for Nicole, Linden was a large man even when he wasn't in his Outcast power armour, and he was able to keep the other feisty blonde from scratching Nicole's eyes out. Susan Lancaster attempted to vault herself at her prey again, but instead of just holding her back this time Linden tossed her away into the dust.

"Enough of this!" he yelled. Nicole finally found her shaky balance and stood up to see not only one of her past 'captures', but two of them. Her dirty laundry was about to come tumbling out all at once in a big sloppy pile.

Not long before, Nicole had done some work for the slavers of Paradise Falls, and nobody needed much of an imagination to guess what that was. To put the icing on the cake, those whom she'd been contracted to enslave had been people she had been close to, or at least, she'd known. One of them, Red from Bigtown, was even a doctor. _A doctor_. As in that thing her father had been. But saving the world doesn't makes you rich, and Nicole had needed the work.

"Is there any way we can skip passed the pleasantries and get right down to figuring out how we're going to make a break for it?" Nicole asked wearily as she still struggled to clear the cobwebs and remain on her feet.

"I counted about two dozen on our way here, all packing," Linden reported with a tone that was neither sceptical nor hopeful. "These guys have an armoury or something?"

"Near abouts, but it's located at the entrance," Flak spoke up from his spot, leaning against a building which served as the slaves' sleeping quarters. All eyes snapped in his direction. After a moment Susan clucked her teeth.

"You can't be serious," the ex-slave glowered. "You aren't going to help them, are you?"

Flak moved away from the wall and joined the group "Yep, and so are you. Unless you're starting to enjoy whoring for free. Besides," his gaze drifted to the woman he'd once bought a drink for, and in return received the ultimate betrayal. "Nicole is going to go first."

Rather than bothering to hope they'd make it in one piece to the Pronto's ammunitions shop, Nicole was going to go ahead with a makeshift knife Flak had come up with, and pounce the first slaver she could. Linden was going to accompany her. All Nicole needed was a gun, any freaking gun, and she'd work her magic. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was kick ass.

"Full of yourself, aren't you?" Susan scoffed when Nicole had laid out her plan. "These aren't dumbass raiders: slavers can coordinate. You take one out, and you'll have eight filling you full of lead, which I'd love to see, I might add. Or they might just send a few thousand volts through you." She tapped her own collar with a slender finger. Her once manicured nails were now chipped and filthy.

Perhaps it was that everyone had decided to ignore that singular fact which would prove any and all plans futile. The group fell silent and looked at their feet when Don spoke up. Nicole had forgotten she was even there.

"Actually," she said softly. "I can fix it so they don't work if that'll help."

"You can?" Nicole asked, perhaps a little too surprised.

"Sure," Don nodded and spoke with quiet hatred. "Ashur used them back in the Pitt, mostly on slaves that were 'trouble'. We learnt how to turn them off, and just acted like we were afraid of them."

"Way to go," Linden said and mildly beamed.

"I am going to need that knife, though," Don said, and Flak handed it to her. She glided up beside Nicole and started picking at her collar.

"Hold up," the blonde said after a thought occurred to her. "Those things have to have some kind of security measure that doesn't just let someone, like... cut into them and turn it off."

"It's a matter of getting the right wires," Don shrugged and started her work again. "We learnt that after a few tries."

That thought didn't quite sit right with the group, but as the small girl moved from collar to collar and no one burnt to death in their own shoes, they decided to try to figure out a proper plan while she worked. Nicole suddenly remembered another time she'd been in closed quarters without weapons, armour or hope.

"I've got it!" she said with a snap of her fingers. "Susan, I need you to hit me."

"What?" Linden asked automatically.

"I like this plan," Susan glowed. "Like, a lot."

"I don't get it," Don said distractedly as she finished with Susan's collar and moved on to Flak. Nicole broke it down for her.

"Susan and I will pretend to fight-"

"Oh, I won't be pretending, bitch."

"- but the slavers don't want us to kill each other, so they'll come to stop us. The collars won't work, so they actually have to come in to break it up, and then the rest of you rush them and get their weapons."

"That's actually not a bad plan," Flak commented with a grim nod.

"I still say she gets her ass shot off," Susan crossed her arms, but her tone betrayed the fact that not only did she believe in Nicole's chances, but that she liked the plan. Maybe it was that hitting thing.

"Hey, Susan," Nicole let the adrenaline start to simmer in her arm muscles. "Want to fight about it?"

The others had moved to the sides of the pen so that when the slavers came, they only had one thing on their minds, and that was the two blondes at each others' throats. Nicole didn't appreciate the fact that Susan was actually trying to 'win' this fight, but she hadn't expected different. Besides, anything else might have looked contrived. It didn't take long for their taunts and shouting to attract the attention of two slavers who were very confused over the fact that their collars weren't working.

"They're going to kill each other!" Linden said, trying to sound excited. The slavers played right into their hands. One grabbed at Nicole's hair, while the other tugged at Susan's arm. The others descended without mercy. In under a minuet Flak had broken the neck of one slaver, while Linden managed to knock the other unconscious.

"Fuck off already Susan!" Nicole hissed as the other woman continued to try and work in a few more jabs. "Linden, you're with me."

It was the one and only time that Nicole found herself overjoyed at the fact that slavers were always well-armed. She used the hull of an old burnt out car as cover and had a combat shotgun warm in her hands after she squared up a few perfect shots and fired. Linden's knowledge in battle was also made clear as he shadowed her, working as cover fire. He anticipated perfectly when the slavers had to reload their weapons, and he took advantage of that. The slavers may have been coordinated, but they hadn't been trained by the Brotherhood of Steel.

At this point Flak and Susan ran up with their own salvaged rifles, Susan toting an assault rifle and Flak handling its Chinese brother. They worked identically to one another, letting bursts of bullets rip through anything and everything, and then ducking behind the various cars and debris to reload. Watching them Nicole was thankful that the bodies they were passing were still loaded with ammunition. At least Flak didn't miss very often.

"Don, where are you going!" Nicole screamed as she watched the wet-nurse scamper towards the main building which served as the home of the man in charge, Eulogy Jones. At that moment Nicole noted curiously that she hadn't seen a flash of red velvet as the well-dressed slaver king moved amongst his cronies.

"Going to get Marie!" the brunette yelled over her shoulder.

Nicole's eyes turned into perfect circles as a beat went by. Bullets rained around her, yet somehow the surrealism of the situation acted as a protective bubble. "You don't have her?"

"Does it look like I do?"

Nicole raced after her charge and into the building to find that the halls echoed only the sounds of their feet. If Eulogy had been there, he'd have come out guns blazing.

"Look, we're here for the kid!" Nicole cried out as she popped another magazine into her rifle. "And we aren't leaving without it, I'd like to add. So if you have her, come on out, and I won't shoot."

"Bullshit!" came a call from somewhere in the house. It sounded like the staircase. Nicole silently motioned for Don to stay, and then moved very slowly in that direction.

"C'mon, Clover. We've travelled together, you know me!"

"You're crazy!"

"I'm crazy?" Nicole cried, highly offended considering the source. Clover appeared at the top of the stairs with Marie in her arms. The baby was crying hysterically.

"The brat won't shut up," Clover pouted. She was holding the baby away from her body in a way that no child should ever be held.

"It's 'cuz you've got her all wrong, Clo," Nicole said empathetically. She saw that the woman had no weapon on her, so she swung her rifle over her arm. "Just let me have the baby and we'll go."

Clover hesitated, but as Nicole reached the top of the stairs and took Marie without any trouble, she just threw her hands up in the air and started to cry. "I'll never be a good momma this way..."

That's when it happened. Clover pulled a 10 mm. out of somewhere, and though it seemed like there had been no area on her person for a weapon to hide, Clover pulled out a 10 mm. out of somewhere. And the fact remained that Nicole's arms were full of a sobbing baby and she could do nothing about it. Time slowed down and hardly crawled until a red dot appeared on her forehead and Clover's head snapped back suddenly. Her body tumbled forward down the stairs and landed at Don's feet.

"Let's go!" the brunette cried as she pocketed her gun and held out her arms expectantly for Marie. They left the building and made for the exit where a few scattered shots were heard, but the firefight they had left behind had largely subsided.

When they passed through the doors to Paradise Falls they found Susan groping through Grouse's pockets. Flak and Linden snapped their rifles to attention but eased down when they saw who it was.

"So that worked pretty well," Nicole said with a large smile and a casual stretch of her arms. Susan approached her, but much to Nicole's surprise, her arm was outstretched in a gesture of friendship.

"Yeah," Susan nodded. The look on her face was that of sincere respect. "It did."

After they shook warmly, Susan retracted her hand and Nicole received a face-full of fist. She fell backwards into the dirt with a dusty thump.

"So, just how much of that is true, d'yah think?"

"What do you mean?"

"About Wernher being from... here."

Wernher's companions were standing around uncomfortably in the house of unspeakable indulgence as Wernher stood off to the side talking quietly with a young, pretty black woman. What stood out to them was the slave collar. Collars had long been in disuse in the Pitt, even before Ashur had been killed. He'd found they were more likely to encourage the people of the Pitt to try something. The best way to handle the slaves had been to manipulate their pride. Wes, Wernher's second in, could remember clearly when Ashur tried to enforce on his raiders the habit of calling the slaves 'workers'. What a load of bullshit.

Randi, a young girl travelling with the handful of men, was chatting quietly with Tom, whose obvious youth meant great inexperience, but he believed in any cause Wernher would put his name to, and the same could be said about the girl.

"Well, if he says he was born here, then I guess it is," Randi said with a shrug. "But his heart is from the Pitt. He's one of us."

"C'mon, let's go," Wernher said, herding them out of the building.

"Shouldn't we take her with us?" Randi asked innocently, taking one last look behind her. The woman with the slave collar had, in a state of shock, sunk to the marbled floor of Eulogy Jones' home; her home. She hadn't seen her master in some time, but what she could see was the body of her sister inches away, a dribble of dried blood trailing from her eyes, nose and the hole in the middle of her forehead. Pulling Clover close to her body, Crimson began to cry.

"No," Wernher shook his head. "The girl will be alright."

"She's got enough weapons to go to war," commented Wes good-humouredly. Wes was Randi's older brother, and the only man Wernher would trust with his secrets. Wes pulled out a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his leather jacket. "What did she say?"

"They came through here alright. Trying to sell the kid," Wernher spat and stepped over another dead slaver. Flies were already seeking out the flesh which couldn't possibly cool in the hot desert sun. "And do you boys see those tracks? Brotherhood."

Wes found it hard to believe, but it was true. Alongside the smaller tracks of two sets of boots was the large print of power armour. It was unmistakable.

"Sell the baby?" repeated Randi is disbelief. Wernher compassionately put an arm around her shoulders as they walked.

"Don't worry, kiddo. We're closing in on them."

"How the hell are we supposed to fight Brotherhood?" Wes asked, his dark, contemplative tone the very opposite of the fear which had tinged his sister's voice. He didn't like the way Wernher had managed to so completely win Randi over, but then, they were all that gullible, weren't they?

"The same way as last time," Wernher said as he swung his leg up and over his motorcycle. Wes was waiting for the footnote which stated that Wernher hadn't been part of any grand war. The Purge had come and passed him by.

For all his lies, however, Wes had to side with his former comrade and present commander. Wes knew that the baby had to return with them to the Pitt no matter what, or there would be an uprising of unspeakable proportions. Or, at least, everyone would flee to the neighbouring cities, and Wernher's dreams would go up in smoke. And Wes couldn't argue that his own life had gotten quite a bit easier since Wernher had come to be in charge. No, Wes needed Wernher. The man had style and charisma, but he could take a bullet like anyone else. And when Wes no longer needed the eye-patch toting manipulator of the masses, he'd kill him, and take up his mantle.

The company mounted their motorcycles and sped off as the buzzards above started to descend.


	4. Chapter 4

With a gingerly stroke of the tender area under her right eye, Nicole begrudgingly acknowledged that the worse injury she'd sustained in the escape from Paradise Falls was a black eye. Susan Lancaster had managed to land the impressive shiner with a flick of her wrist and a swish of her hair before departing with Flak. Nicole was just relieved that the smaller, scrappier blonde had chosen to express her thanks in a form that wasn't a bullet. In truth, Nicole wouldn't have been so forgiving had she been in Susan's place.

After the altercation with the slavers, the three found themselves noticeably jumpier as they moved west. Every time a gust of wind met them over a hill in a haunting moan, the rattling of weapons soon followed as Nicole and Linden would assume a defensive stance, rifles in hand. Even Don would fiercley grip her new-found pistol.

Nicole was sure that the nurse-maid had some very weighty questions for her guide but was managing to keep them to herself, thankfully. Despite the fact that she'd been at the other end of a slave collar, Nicole had demonstrated that she was on friendly terms with the inhabitants of Paradise Falls to the point of knowing the slavers by name, and vice versa. It was likely, of course, that at this point Don just didn't care. She'd played the part of innocent ex-slave and wet nurse convincingly, but she'd made an almost impossible shot when she had killed Clover, and Don wasn't blind: she couldn't have missed the fact that Clover was indentured. A slave collar was a hard thing to miss. Perhaps Don's silence was motivated by the fact that once she started asking questions, Nicole would be given the opportunity to make her own inquiries.

They were headed to Arefu for the afternoon. After the stint at Paradise Falls, Nicole was shaken up. It had been the first time she'd seen a proper battle in two months, and Nicole had managed to get her and her charge captured by slavers. It still seemed impossible that no one had been killed, but maybe karma was finally smiling down on her. So to take advantage of their good luck, they were going to have a nice, quiet afternoon in Arefu for a late lunch, and Nicole was hoping a caravan was making their way through the area, as they had come in possession of a lot of equipment to sell. Linden had five rifles swinging on his back, and Nicole's pack was loaded down with enough drugs and spare medical supplies to keep all of Rivet City happy until the next apocalypse.

As a balm to their constantly jarred nerves, Arefu and its promise of a little relaxation finally came into view. The Potomac usually presented the problem of mirelurks, and today proved to be like any other. Linden had spotted the creature long before it had noticed their presence, and fired a few blasts from his laser rifle. There was no denying that energy weapons dealt with the 'lurks better than a bullet, and soon the thing was dead. Don stared at the hull of the creature which had tumbled back and now rocked back and forth in the water.

"You see a lot of them near the river, and these aren't even the worse kind," Nicole sniffed nonchalantly.

Don's curiosity heightened. "But how do they survive in the water?"

"Uh," Nicole thought for a moment. "Oh! The water here isn't nearly as radiated as in the Pitt. You can actually swim in the Potomac. I've done it quite a bit."

"Swim?" Don echoed. Nicole nodded, but her attention was elsewhere. She had spotted the wandering merchant Crow and his guard along side a brahmin laden with goods.

"C'mon, there's Crow. We can get rid of some of this crap."

Nicole and Linden happily greeted the merchant, glad to be rid of their own load, but Don hung back, looking down at the water longingly. Nicole priced out some items while Linden placed the rifles down at their feet, and turned.

"I'm going to go and make sure Don doesn't get into any trouble."

Nicole and Crow chatted for a bit. The merchant was very curious as to where the weapons cache had come from, and the blonde wasn't sure if she should say.

"C'mon," Crow purred from under the brim of his hat. "I saved all that .44 mag for you, and I had some very persuasive offers on the road, I should add."

"Yeah, I know," Nicole blushed, and shifted her weight from one leg to the other in apprehension. Finally she sighed. "Fine. Paradise Falls."

Crow's face went from shades of confusion to acknowledgement to disappointment in about three seconds. "Girl, I trade with them! They're about the only folks who can afford my fine apparel, and-"

"And they're slavers," Nicole pointed out, but she couldn't meet the merchant's eyes. She went back to inspecting some of the goods that had been laid out on the old Chinese mat that served as a part-time saddle.

"Kid, how many settlements have you wiped off the map now? Let's see," Crow began to count off locations with his fingers. "So we have Paradise Falls now. Evergreen Mills was a few months back-"

"Also slavers," Nicole huffed, and put her hand to Crow's mouth before he could continue his little list of her dark deeds. "And besides, I brought Arefu back from the brink, doesn't that count for something? These are good people, not slavers."

"Slavers are people, too," Crow said with a shrug. "They're just trying to get by."

"You can't believe that!" Nicole crossed her arms. Crow smiled wistfully.

"Well, the point I'm trying to make is that _I'm_ just people trying to get by, and it's hard to do that when you keep taking out my clientele."

"Did I not just provide you with enough disposable goods to feed you and Cassie here for half a year?"

Crow didn't have a response to that.

"Exactly," Nicole grinned, and then waved her hand at the items spread out on the blanket. "I think I've got all I need."

Crow and his female companion went about packing their stuff up while Nicole counted out a few bottle caps to even up the trade. As the caps exchanged hands, Crow nodded down at the Potomac's edge where Don was washing off Marie and Linden, having shed his armor, was diving under the surface of the murky water. "So who are they?"

"Just some people," Nicole shrugged, then put up her hands. "Look, don't twist my arm. I'm heading to the Citadel. The baby needs a place to grow up."

"There are places less... extreme then the Citadel," Crow said. He knew that the Lone Wanderer was on very good terms with the Brotherhood of Steel, of course. How could she not be? Nicole had worked very closely with them to bring down the Enclave, and had seen fit to trust them with full control of the operations at Jefferson Memorial. Undoubtedly the baby would be privy to the best education available in the wasteland short of that from a Vault, and there was no safer place to grow up.

"Yep, there sure are," Nicole nodded. She picked up the suit of combat armor she was going to spend the afternoon taking apart and resetting into her own suit. "Until we meet again."

They exchanged farewells and Nicole walked down to where her companions were. Marie was sitting up in the water with Don's help, giggling as she slapped up some spray. Linden was treading water and watching the baby with a glow in his eyes, but upon noticing Nicole's approach, he climbed out of the water and took on a much more serious stance. Even if he was only in his underwear, the man was imposing, no doubt about it.

"So," Linden placed his hands on his hips as water cascaded down his limbs.

"Yep, so," Nicole nodded. "Got a good price on the rifles, and picked up some spare stims. Let's get to Arefu, I'm starving."

They walked up the bridge to where the settlement was, the altercation at Paradise Falls now forgotten. Nicole had always found it hard to believe that such a well situated community could have fallen on hard times due to raider and slaver attacks, which was the story. There was only one way to approach the houses of Arefu, and that was up the ramp. Hell, the first time Nicole had come to Arefu she'd almost been blown in two. All the town needed was a few well armed persons and they'd be safe and snug. As it was, a little more than two months back Nicole had provided them with one such a person.

"Here she comes!" Evan King sang out as he saw who was approaching his little town. The mayor stood up from his chair and put his hands out. "The heroine of Arefu!"

Nicole beamed. "Hey, Evan! Got anything to eat for a couple of wasteland-weary travelers?"

"For you? Anything!" King was always excessively exuberant when Nicole came to town. He offered them boxes of pre-war goodies, commenting that Doc Hoff, a merchant who specialized in food and medicine, had just been by a few days ago.

"Yeah, Crow is down there right now," Nicole jerked her thumb in the direction behind her as they sat in King's house around the table. She picked up another candied apple chunk and popped it into her mouth. The taste was very strong, almost stinging on her tastebuds, and she salivated just a little as she ate another. "How are things working out with Alan?"

"As good as ever!" King cheered, and he took a swig from his beer bottle. "Even got that boy eating like a real person. Though you should see him: pours those blood packets all over his Instamash like it's gravy, it's the damnedest thing."

Linden's eyes just about popped out of his head.

More small talk followed when they'd finished their meal, and as the sun moved lower in the sky Nicole mused on spending the night. She was comfortable and content and finding that she was enjoying the company of her companions quite a bit, now that they were talking freely and had forgotten any unsavory tastes that Paradise Falls had left. King had broken away from the group and the three were quietly admiring the scenery from their vantage point high above the river as they stood around outside. Far below a few mole rats moved across the hills and Don pointed them out to Marie who looked in the opposite direction.

It was then that Nicole noticed a low, constant humming that moved up from the wasteland to offend their ears. She wasn't sure where the sound was coming from, but it was mechanical, and nothing like she'd ever heard before. Not in DC anyways. Linden had noticed it too, and his gaze turned to steel as he looked out over the bridge.

"What is that?" Nicole wondered aloud, but her curiosity couldn't match the horror that appeared on Don's face.

"Wernher!" she cried. Nicole rolled her eyes in disbelief.

"Impossible," the blonde shook her head and started thinking. She'd seen Enclave vertibirds out this way before, but they were rather large crafts and hard to miss. Then Nicole remember that she'd once seen the functioning bretheren of the broken-down motorcycles that littered the Capital Wasteland. What she was hearing reminded her of those the smugglers in the swamps favored.

"It sounds like the motorcycles Wernher had!" Don's tone picked up confidence as Nicole's face showed how her opinion was swaying. "Believe me, I know what I'm talking about!"

"I thinks she's right," Linden said darkly; the final nail in the coffin. "I know what you're thinking, Nicole. And it's not Brotherhood. Or Enclave."

"Exactly how much experience with the Enclave do you have?" Nicole asked skeptically. Linden didn't move to answer. Nicole let out a sound of frustration at the fact that her quiet evening was about to be disrupted. "Fine then. But we should run."

"Run?" Linden s pride didn't seem to like that option. His peace-loving Treeminder was becoming lost in favor of his cocky, imperious Outcast instincts.

"The last time we fought, we had our asses handed to us," Nicole reminded him. "But more importantly I don't want to bring that fight to these people. So we run."

And they did. They crossed the Potomac, Linden taking Marie and holding the baby above his head best he could until they were over the river. Nicole knew a place Wernher wasn't likely to follow. There was always such a nice advantage that came with playing on home field.

"How do you think they found us?" Linden asked as they ran. Nicole was amazed at the man's ability to prioritize: he wasn't asking who Wernher was, or what he wanted. Linden just wanted to know how the man had been able to find them. He wanted to know what he was up against so he'd know how to deal with it. Whom wasn't really relivant.

"No idea," Nicole huffed as she looked behind her quickly. "I didn't exactly put much stock in his ability to track. On the other hand, I didn't think he'd follow us, either!"

They approached the small patch of buildings that were found outside the Northwest Seneca station in a skitter of dust and panting. Nicole was going to take the group down and under the metro, into the tunnels below which led into another metro station. It was better than moving in the open, and Nicole felt it was very unlikely anyone wound find them there. There was also the hope of help from Vincent and his odd-ball crew. As much as Nicole hated to admit it, it was because of Flak and Susan that they'd gotten out of Paradise Falls at all, and it looked like she was going to need more help again this time. Her confidence was ebbing.

Nicole should have been surprised to see a small group of well-armed men waiting outside the gate infront of the metro, but she wasn't. Her group's lack of grace alerted the attention of the Regulators standing around, and one approached them as Nicole and her charges halted.

"Oh, c'mon, guys..." Nicole groaned, doubling over as her chest pounded.

"Relax, Nick, we're not here for you," said the first one, raising his hand in a halting motion. They had in fact been introduced once, but his name escaped the blonde. The head Regulator looked at Linden who had put himself in front of Don and the baby, and then his eyes passed the man in the Outcast armor to the woman and child. "Who are they?"

"They need your help is who they are," Nicole blurted out and stood up straight. The Regulator was hardly taller than her. "We're being chased by a man who is trying to take this baby-"

"No!" Don cried.

"Don't worry, they can help!" Nicole turned back quickly. "M... M...-"

The Regulator tried to read the girl's face, and when he realized what it was she was scrutinizing over, he rolled his eyes. "Mark?"

"Yes, Mark!" Nicole cried breathlessly, still attempting to get some air into her lungs. "Mark, this kid has some sort of mutation that allows her to deflect radiation. We're being chased by a man who wants to take her from us. He's a dictator. He has an entire city under slavery. We're just trying to save the kid."

Nicole had learnt a long time ago that it was useless lying to a Regulator, and concidering her very tenuous (and fairly confusing) relationship with the organization, she didn't want to raise anything close to a suspiscion. So everything kind of just came falling out of her mouth in way of explination. Mark's face didn't change, but it was clear he was thinking this information over, and there was a lot of it to take in one sitting. "Where are they from?"

"The Pitt," Nicole answered solemnly. The Regulators weren't stupid, and considering their sworn oath was to protect the public from evil-doers, it was unlikely that they hadn't heard of the situation the Pitt found themselves in.

"Are you the mother?" the Regulator addressed Don who was all but crushing Marie into her chest.

"Yes," Don answered.

"Alright," Mark stepped aside. "Get to where you were going. Might I suggest, though, you head towards Regulator HQ. You tell them what your business is about, they'll be able to help you towards your goals." The head Regulator then looked to one of his companions. "Mal, you go with them."

"Yes, sir," answered one of the young companions. He looked hardly older than Nicole, and about as green as she'd been when she had stepped out of the vault. Maybe it was his smooth, child-like facial features: Nicole knew better than to think any Regulator was inexperienced.

With a stern, appreciative nod Nicole led her ever-expanding group down into the ground and, she hoped, safety.

Yep; the Regulator headquarters sounded like just what they needed.

Night had long ago fallen, but one wouldn't know it down in the depths of Meresti Station. Upon attempting to interrogate the citizens of Arefu, Wernher had spotted a solitary man running across the ground and away from the area. Wernher and his companions followed on foot so as to not alert the man to their presence so they could see where he was headed. Wes, the second in command, stayed behind with the motorcycles and was given the task of dealing with the witnesses at the settlement. The man fleeing unknowingly had led Wernher's group all the way to a metro station.

Wernher and Vincent were having a chat whilst tensions below were so thick one could cut it with a knife. The two men looked down to where their groups mingled, and they were each as straight-faced as the other. Had it not been for years of experience, it might have been difficult to read the other's expression, but it wasn't: Wernher's stone-cold facade was that of a man looking out only for his own, and Vincent's countenance matched perfectly.

"So, the headquarters of the Regulators, you say?" Wernher asked while absent-mindedly rubbing his chin.

"Yes. They said they were running from someone who wanted to hurt the child that was with them. I assume that's you." Vincent cast a cold look at the man beside him who returned it in kind. "I don't enjoy betraying those who have helped me, I'll have you know."

Wernher laughed. "And yet here we are. Why do it?"

"I think it's obvious," Vincent said stiffly. "I have my own people to think of, as do you."

"Actually," Wernher countered darkly. "I'm not thinking of my people. I'm thinking of that little girl you just sold out."

This caught Vincent off guard and he winced slightly. "Pardon me?"

"That kid is about ten times what you and your little clan are worth," Wernher had his pistol to Vincent's head before the man could in any way react. "And I could be the big, bad monster from under the bed and you'd have just sold her out."

"From what I heard, you are just that," Vincent said closing his eyes. This wasn't the first time he'd had a gun pressed to his temple and come out the victor. Vincent had always been a valiant fighter, and a man of honor as well. It was why he preferred to use a sword, like the knight in an old story his mother had told him as a child, and why he fiercely protected those whom he loved or those he found in his care. He always had been so caught up in stories. Vincent could easily keep these intruders at bay, if only Wernher's finger wasn't already squeezing the trigger...

As soon as Vincent's body hit the floor, all hell broke loose. At this moment Wes had finally caught up with the group, and with him taking up the rear, Vincent's family was caught in the middle. Those who didn't die from their injuries would eventually. Wernher stepped over the blood and viscera and turned to his companions with a self-righteous smile.

"Well, let's get this over with."

It would take no time at all to close the gap between them and the Regulator's Headquarters and thankfully, Wernher had travelled that path many times. Wernher decided the best plan of action would be to take a longer way around and descend upon the company within the Regulators' base of operations. Both companies in question seemed to be avoiding a fire-fight in the interest of Marie, and Wernher was just fine with that. He was very, very good at ambushes.


	5. Chapter 5

The moon shone brightly over the Capital Wasteland, and the shadows were large and imposing: dark companions to the hulking, black outlines of dead trees and boulders. It should have been a quiet night, all things considered, and for the most part, it was. All save for a tiny group of people making their way across the sands and illuminated by a dull green light.

"What do you mean we're not heading to the headquarters of these, what were they called... 'Regulators'?"

"I have to agree with Don: with these men from the Pitt following us, don't you think the best course of action would be to have back-up? I've been in such situations before, but these men appear to have the upper hand with the motorcycles-"

"-I mean, if it's our capabilities you are questioning, or our loyalties... you should know how capable the Regulators are, we managed to track you down enough times..."

"Nick, I trust you. I really do. And I trust Linden and our new friend here, but it has not even been a day since we were captured by slavers, and I feel that-"

"-moving targets, but not targets moving at such speeds!"

"... and the fact that we're even helping someone with such wavering morality speaks volumes to our character and our-"

Nicole didn't say a thing. She just turned and stared at the group, the blood rushing to her face as she balled her fists. Her followers stopped mid-step as their leader appeared to have finally let her tenuous patience snap. But Nicole wasn't about to let her frustrations become a distraction and she continued walking, hands up in the air in a motion of surrender.

"Don, if you trust me, then follow me. Linden, shut up and that's an order. New guy... I don't really care."

Apparently the commands became mixed up in their path from Nicole's lips to the ears of her companions because not a second passed before Linden spoke again.

"Nicole... Larkspur..."

The blonde stopped, and truly stopped at that. Her feet halted and dug themselves deep into the sand, and with a deep, calming breath she tried to slow her heart and soothe the adrenaline she felt surging through her body at the thought of Wernher closing in on them, at the pressure she felt from the three hundred voices burrowing into her brain, everything.

"What?" Nicole asked, her voice quivering a little.

"What are you thinking?" Linden pried in a tone that could only be described as understanding.

"There is no way heading to the Regulators' is a good idea. It's not that I don't trust them, Mal, or their 'capabilities'," Nicole abhorred the sarcasm that accented her choice of words. She felt like a child, but it was because she was being treated like one. "But Wernher... look, we barely escaped him and whoever else he's got on those other bikes we saw. I have no doubt he's going to find out where we're going one way or another. I have dealt with him enough to knew he's very crafty, and apparently just as determined. So we head the other way. It'll buy us some time."

As they started their march again, Linden spoke up once more.

"You used him. That man: Vincent."

"Yeah, I did."

"What will Wernher do when he finds out he has been lied to?"

Nicole wanted to be able to say more, but she didn't really have anything to add. She only knew that she had to keep them moving. Nicole recalled the man who had been nestled comfortably behind his desk the day she had chosen to leave the Pitt, and those blood-shot eyes that had peered out through the low-hanging cigar haze. Desperately she tried to move passed her new found fears that the memory of those eyes brought. So what if he'd followed them into the Capital Wasteland? Did it matter that Nicole's ammunition couldn't possibly stand up to the numbers of men escorting Wernher, and that her companions' had little to no faith in her now?

No. It didn't. Like so many times before, she thought to when she was younger. If there was one place she could run to when frustration threatened to swallow her up, it was the past. Nicole thought back to when she was thirteen years old, swaddled in the worn denim of a Vault 101 suit and discouraged over the latest class assignment. They had been divided up into groups, and their teacher had designated one out of each to be their leader. That esteemed position had fallen to Nicole in her little collective of four, and at first she'd been rather excited. Usually they had the choice of picking whom they would work with, and Amata always made it look so easy when she allotted herself as group leader. This time, though, when it had come down to Nicole to establish her directorial skills, things hadn't moved so smoothly.

"Nicole?" came her father's articulate voice as he appeared in the doorway of the room that they shared. His portion of the room was neat and tidy, but Nicole's was a mess, with books strewn all over and under her bed, though James wouldn't think of making it an issue. Lifting her head from her knees, Nicole saw that her suit was spotted with tears.

"Hey, dad," she managed to mumble before again retreating into the cave her arms created. James gently sat on the bed beside her after moving some of her books and drawing supplies onto the floor.

"Nicole, what's wrong?"

Nicole looked up at her father. She still couldn't get used to the stubble he was starting to let grow. She was so used to his face being completely shaven and smooth. "In class we're supposed to be doing a project on the human anatomy-"

"Well, that's right up your alley, kiddo," James said with a supportive smile. His daughter was used to his overstating her abilities when it came that particular topic. When Nicole had homework on anything medical-related, her father usually did more of it than she did, out of zeal for the field.

"No, dad, that's not the problem. I was made leader of our group and the other kids won't listen to me. We're supposed to make a diagram, and do, like, little speeches and stuff. I'm supposed to decide who does what but no one is listening to me, and..." Nicole started crying again. She wasn't one for crying out of sadness, but the frustration she was feeling was unbearable. James noticed what it was that was cluttering her side of the room: dozens of half-completed cue-cards had fallen from the bed and were now probably out of order, and pieces of coloured pictures that were to be glued to a back-board were dotted with his daughters tears. She had obviously been trying to pick up the slack of her classmates. Picking up the slack would, unknowingly to him, be the story of her life.

"Oh, sweetheart," James let his little girl lean into him and he tucked her head under his chin. "You can't let them bully you around. If Mr. Brotch assigned you as their leader, they have to listen to you."

"I don't even want to be the leader," Nicole's voice was muffled against her father's chest.

"It's not about what you want," James smoothed a hand over her fair hair. "It's about what they need. You're going to find that sometimes things happen and a vote won't solve anything. Sometimes you need to tell people what they have to do to help them, even if they don't want to listen."

"Really?" Nicole asked with a little laugh as she sat back. "I thought that was what the Overseer did. I'm not going to be the Overseer, dad."

Glancing back at her companions, Nicole recalled too clearly the far-away look on her father's face those years ago. What was it? Had James realized he had reduced his daughter to not much more than a brain-washed prisoner to the Overseer's policies? Was he remembering his authoritive position as head of a brilliant squad of scientists, and mourning that his daughter would never be given that chance?

"Man, you are really in your head, aren't you?"

Nicole hadn't noticed that the Regulator, Mal, was matching her strides and looking at her with an entertained expression.

"Yeah. So?"

"Oh, 'so' nothing," Mal shrugged. "But when you're supposed to be the leader here, it's better to be in the present than stuck in your head and beating yourself. After all, the past makes an ass out of you and me."

Nicole squinted at him. "Did they teach you that at leader school?"

It wasn't funny but Mal smiled any way. "It's not that I don't trust your ability to lead, Nick. It's that I don't trust you."

Nicole laughed to herself. If she'd seen one Regulator, she'd seen them all. "At least you have a sense of humor."

"I just don't want to get killed serving a woman who we had on two separate occasions the order to put down," Mal said straight-forwardly. It was as good as a slap in the face.

"Could you say that any louder?" Nicole asked tersely, but upon looking over her shoulder saw that Linden and Don were distracted by their own conversation which appeared to be "ha-ha" funny, not "let's do this dance to see who is the alpha male/female/whatever here" funny. As they giggled and guffawed Don appeared to bump into Linden which just sent them into fresh peals of laughter. Marie was happy as a mutated clam in her restraints, which in theory should have meant bigger happy. They painted a lovely picture in the darkness.

"Just so you know, what I'm doing right now?" Nicole spread her arms to indicate their present situation. "I'm righting a wrong. I'm trying here."

"And are you trying for your own sake, or for the sake of kid?"

"Does it really matter?"

The Regulator shook his head much to the blonde's surprise. "No. It doesn't, actually. At least not to me. But just the same; if you're going to be our fearless leader can you at least be aware of what's going on around you?"

"Why?" Nicole asked in a dramatic tone. "Is there a dissent in the ranks?"

"No," Mal spoke like an adult lecturing a child. "But there are some rather questionable figures looming on yon horizon."

Nicole whipped her rifle off her back and brought it up to look through the scope. Chinese Assault Rifles were no where near as useful as Sniper Rifles when it came to scoping out details in the distance, but it was better than the bare eye, even under the dim moonlight.

"Oh, hell," Nicole cursed. Mal laughed a little.

"'Guai?" Nicole asked shrilly. "You think 'guai are funny?"

Mal shrugged and pulled his hunting rifle off his back with a suggestive wiggle of his brows. Nicole rolled her eyes.

"You cowboys aren't funny at all." Nicole stopped and noted the curious look on Linden's face as he approached. "Get your gun. There are two couples of yao guai approaching."

"Isn't that a foursome?" Mal commented thoughtfully.

Nicole was going to make a few colourful suggestions, but decided to check the chamber of her rifle to make sure the clip was full. Yep.

"Don, I want you to get far back. Hell, run if you want. Boys, pick your target and, well..." Nicole didn't feel the need to finish the order. It wasn't exactly open ended, or in need of much imagination, but Nicole felt the urge to pounce too distracting. She felt the adrenaline in the muscles of her arms and back start to itch.

The yao guai themselves were of varying bulk, their darkened outlines fairly visible against the white of the desert landscape. Two of them were the size of typical mature adults, the other two about half that size. Cubs? The sight of Linden in his Outcast amour made them pause as it would have any creature with an interest in self-preservation, but the bear which had decided on trying to make Nicole his dinner couldn't have had anything farther from his mind.

Fighting with 'guai was rarely interesting, and it never deviated from the patented pattern of thoughtless, automated madness. If you paused to think, you'd loose your head to their massive paws. If you did a double-take, you were going to have a very private face-to-face meeting with your intestines. A few well placed shots from a combat shotgun would put a guai down easily, but Nicole didn't have one with her. A Chinese Assault Rifle needed a little more time to cover the same spread of a shotgun's blast, and she was squeezing off rounds long before the bear was near her. The bullets becoming lodged into the guai's thick skull was deterring the creature, slowing it surely, but it still managed to shove its massive face into Nicole's personal space. She jogged backwards best she could, but the yao guai was rearing up and vaulting himself into the sky to deliver what should have been a very deadly attack. Nicole brought her rifle up and let the path of bullets tear through the bear's belly, throat, jaw and into the brain. It was dead when it landed. And it landed on her.

Letting out a yelp, Nicole was half-buried under the hot body of the bleeding animal and clawing to get out. Her rifle was within reach, but the body was crushing her, even if it was only really on her legs. She hadn't even noticed the silence around them, that all other firing had seized. As Mal appeared over-head to pull the hulk of matted hair off of her, Nicole sighed happily, even giggled a little as she noted the silence. All but a sharp sudden sobbing.

"Oh, God," Nicole pulled herself to her feet as Don cried frantically somewhere. What happened? Had a stray bullet found its way to Marie? Maybe Don's scent had caught the attention of one of the 'guai, and the small body strapped to the chest had acted as a protective vest against the claws of one of the bears. Nicole couldn't fathom what she might do if that baby was dead.

Together with the Regulator she ran towards the sounds of the sobbing and found Don on her knees and holding Linden's head in her lap. Luckily, it was attached to his body. He was, however, bleeding profusely from what seemed like everywhere and he was unconscious. From the look of it, which ever 'guai he had been fighting had gotten a good hold on his leg and crushed through the sturdy armor into the limb it was supposed to protect. Nicole envisioned the man being tossed about like a rag doll until his head hit something with a sickening crack and he blacked out.

"We need to help him," Don cried helplessly, Marie starting to match her nurse-maid's sobs in profusion and pitch.

"Shit!" Nicole frantically shoved her hands into her hair and attempted to try to think, but nothing was coming. Mal grabbed her upper arm.

"You don't have time for this," he growled. "You don't have time to freak out and act like a-"

Nicole punched him in the face so hard that when the Regulator brought his hand away from his nose, there was a healthy smear of blood.

"Okay!" Nicole said optimistically, her head suddenly clear. "Mal, help me get him up and move that way!"

She was too afraid to start trying to take the armor off Linden's limp frame for fear of tearing more flesh or increasing the bleeding, so Mal and Nicole had to struggle in their burden, but where they were heading wasn't that far away.

"Oh, Agatha, don't fail me now..." Nicole prayed as they scurried through the dust.

[][][]

Wernher pinched the bridge of his nose. Evening had come; his prey had not. Burning his bridges was coming back to bite him in the ass. Or rather, burning those bodies back at Meresti station. If he hadn't killed them out of the fear that they might return to haunt him, Wernher would have been able to go back and question them properly rather than desperately soaking up whatever lies they had provided. And the Regulators had, of course, had nothing to say. After torturing one, killing another outright, and objecting a third to such injuries that she suddenly expelled her last breath, Wernher had felt it was best to move on before any other Regulators returned to get the drop on them. Wernher couldn't be sure how many were out there, but he was sure that these ones weren't talking. It occurred to him that such sincere innocence to his questions couldn't possibly be a contrivance, and it hadn't helped him thus far to kill all of the witnesses. But as he stood over the body of the Sonora Cruz, he felt a sudden clarity of what he must do. Go big or go home, his mother had always said.

So Wernher pinched his bridge. Heavy. This was about to get heavy.

"So, wait, why would the Brotherhood help us?" Tom was asking as he paced in fear at the thought of confronting the Brotherhood. It was an organization which had begun to put the bogeyman to shame since Wernher had started telling stories of their actions and ethics: a fraternity of God-like mercenaries armed to the teeth and starved with an insatiable hunger for technology, they had come in and left in their wake a tyrant. A tyrant that had been one of their own. "Ashur was Brotherhood. Won't they be pissed when they find out he's dead?"

Heavy, heavy, heavy. Wernher was beginning to see that not all his plans were infallible. And it was this fucking place. In the Pitt, on his home turf, he was unquestionable and all-knowing. It should have been so much easier than this. Wernher knew DC better than any one else from the Pitt, and knowledge was the key to power. So why was it that all his plans were unfurling into a futile, pathetic pile at his feet?

"You're right, Tom," Wernher said, letting his voice waver. It had always worked for him before: let the people see that he was vulnerable, and it made them feel like they were the strong ones. "But it's our only hope. I'm not asking you to come with me, any of you. But this has to be done, or we'll never see little Marie again."

Tom was frantic, and Randi was crying, but Wes wasn't buying any of it. Taking his last cigarette and crushing the empty packaging underfoot, Wes lit the cylinder, took a puff, and let the smoke blow in Wernher's direction. This act of insolence was lost on the two younger companions as they continued to fret over whether they should follow their leader to certain death, or stay behind and be branded cowards by their own sets of patriotic principles.

"Wes, can I talk to you a minuet?" Wernher asked, but he wouldn't let his mask of worry slip until he was out of the view of the others. When they had put enough distance between the two groups to ensure privacy, Wernher turned on his second-in-command.

"What's your deal?" he spat, crossing his arms.

"What's my deal?" Wes echoed and took another drag from his cigarette. "What's with this plan of yours? You tell the Brotherhood about the baby, and they're going to want it, and then we're all fucked. And that was power armor tracks with Nicole's, no mistaking it. What's going on in your head, Wern?"

Sometimes Wernher couldn't tell if his lieutenant was a step ahead of him or a step behind. It felt good to know that Wernher still had the upper hand, and reassuring that this was what was bothering Wes, not a feeling of disloyalty. "Look, there is this cat who runs a radio-station down town. I don't know where that bitch and the baby are heading anymore, but I have a feeling that if I go right now I could make it into the city, and if I can get sympathy from the guy at the radio station, I can literally have everyone across this shit-hole wasteland looking for her and that rugrat."

"How can you be so sure that will work?" Wes asked, so absorbed by this piece of information that he had forgotten about his cigarette, and it was now burning down to nothing between his fingers.

"This guy believes in 'fighting the Good Fight' as he calls it," Wernher smirked sarcastically. "And he has the Brotherhood of Steel right under this thumb, the schemey bastard. Like I said, I tell the right sob story, and I'll have those power-armored bastards eating out of my hand, too."

Wes looked to his leader with a gaze of fixed, unshakable faith. "What do you need me to do?"

And somehow it had come full-circle with Wernher playing perfectly into Wes' hands. The commands he had received were simple: take with them the radio they had found in the Regulator's headquarters and stay put, comfortable and safe, in a place of Wernher's choosing until they received word that it was alright for them to regroup. This was likely to materialize by either Wernher's presence with Marie, or by the man on the radio broadcasting the evils of a certain baby-snatching ne'er-do-well. Once Wernher had the baby back he was still going to need them as an escort back to the Pitt, but until then, Wernher couldn't risk Randi or Tom letting something slip among the local populace that might jeopardize their operation. In truth, Wernher would have just as soon taken Wes with him and left the other two to fend for themselves, but Wes would never allow such disregard for his sister.

"So what's the plan?" Randi asked as Wes approached those who had been left behind. Randi's baby-blues trailed Wernher longingly into the distance, and her brother acknowledged sadly that the brain-washed girl would have followed Wernher into DC and her death if that had been the order.

"Back to the Pitt," Wes said as he mounted his motorcycle. "Wernher trusts his chances with the Brotherhood and wants us back home."

"But we can't just leave him!" Randi said, tears springing to her eyes. Tom simply looked too over-joyed to be getting out of DC and hopped on his vehicle with gratuitous anticipation, only so happy that their leader had made so gracious a decision.

"Randi, hey," Wes said, beckoning for her to come to him and softening his voice to a tone reserved for only his baby sister. "Wernher knows what he's talking about. He always does. Do you want to ride with me back?"

And so with Wes, his sister and their third companion moving quickly to the hills in the north, and Wernher flying with determination into the southern ruins of DC, Nicole and her charges were stuck somewhere in the middle, in a dark, musty, poorly-sanitized shack watching their friend Linden bleed out. But they all had the same stars to look at, and they all shared in that timeless belief of being so small when compared to a sky so huge.

After several hours of navigating the ruins and moving half-blind through metro tunnels, Wernher approached the heavily-guarded building which served as his destination. His eyes drifted up to the stars; those lofty, arrogant orbs that had out-lived a million men, and would see many yet fall before their own lights went out.

"Well," Wernher mused to himself quietly. "Mama always did say go big or go home."

He started towards the crumbling building which housed the one and only radio star of the wastes, Three Dog.


	6. Chapter 6

A week had passed and Nicole was starting to forget herself just as sure as she had when she'd been in the Pitt. It wasn't that she was loosing her edge. No; when Agatha's soothing examples of musical virtuoso started to grate on her, and coupled its self with restless inactivity, Nicole just slung Mal's hunting rifle over her shoulder and went outside.

Bringing the gun up to her face, she watched the scope waver until her breathing calmed, and the rifle came to a still. The hand which supported the neck of the gun lay straight instead of curling around the barrel, lest that hand twitch and screw up the shot. Her finger moved shyly from aside the rifle into the comfortable nest around the trigger. Bang. The stray tin cans fell one by one. Admittedly it wasn't the smartest idea to be shooting rounds off when they were trying to be discreet, but it was safer for Nicole's sanity and the general peace inside Agatha's shack.

What was eating at her was Linden: although all that could be done for him had been, he was still out of it. He'd awoken several times during the week, but had only managed to retain consciousness long enough for Don to try unsuccessfully to get him to drink a bit of water. Nicole hadn't been much more than a spectator to the medical procedures carried out by Agatha and Don, but the injuries could have been much more serious. Possible head injury aside, the worst of it had been that pieces of Linden's Outcast armour had become implanted in his thigh where the yao guai had attacked him. The protective shell of the power amour had been twisted with the creature's teeth, leaving lasting damage long after it had been killed. With several strings of surgical tubing tied around Linden's leg, Nicole had watched as the two women liberated chunks of metal with tweezers and dropped them to the floor. After they'd cleaned up, the women and Mal had molerat stew for supper.

Agatha was a very gracious hostess, making up comfortable beds on the floor and letting Linden heal up on her own cot. They passed the time with Agatha and Mal playing poker with a home-made deck of cards, while Nicole paced or went out side, and Don half-heartedly tended to Marie. The nurse-maid was visibly crest-fallen at the recent turn of events. At one point Don had let it slip that she believed none of this would have happened if they'd gone ahead with the plan to travel to the Regulator's Headquarters. Nicole wondered afterwards if she was been right. And so, when a week had passed, Nicole found it difficult to approach the woman without some certain amount of apprehension and the urge to turn tail.

"Hey," Nicole greeted casually as she stretched out alongside Don on the cot. The brunette was deeply engrossed in a Scout's Handbook that was only half there, most of the pages having fallen out. It was amazing, the things one found in the corners of Agatha's house.

"Hey," Don echoed. She finally looked up at the blonde when she realized Nicole wasn't going away. "What is it?"

Nicole hesitated. "Well... I think it's time we got moving soon. Tomorrow morning maybe. We've stayed here long enough. And it doesn't look like Linden is going to wake up any time soon. If we wait any longer-"

"If we wait any longer what?" Don asked softly. "It's safe here. Quiet. We're totally out of the way, there's no way Wernher would find us in here."

"The fact of the matter is that it isn't a big wasteland. He'll find us eventually. And I think if Wernher came all the way from the Pitt, this is big business. Like you yourself said, he needs that baby. And we need backup. But with Linden out of commission..." Nicole let it hang like she did so many times. Or rather, she couldn't find the words to end that particular thought. She'd been so sure Linden would wake up by now. Every time she looked at his motionless body, fear began to well up in her chest.

"And where we're going there's backup?" Don's voice verged on scepticism. "To be honest, at this point I wouldn't blame anyone willing to sell us out to keep their own family safe. That's how the world works anyways. Where we're going - I mean, does it have some awe-inspiring... police force or something? And! And the more people who know about us, the more likely someone is to talk. If we just stay here, out of sight, there's no worries: and Agatha doesn't mind us."

Nicole messaged the bridge of her nose, acutely aware that she hadn't had a headache before she sat down. Don seemed a little repentant about her sudden outburst, so setting down the book she gingerly touched Nicole's elbow.

"What you've done for us has been very kind, and I'm grateful. But maybe it's just time we parted ways. You're clearly ready to get out of here, but we're about as safe as we could get. I just don't see why we have to leave is all."

"Why don't you just tell her where we're headed?"

The voice was unusually strong and confident for belonging to a man who had lost almost more blood than Doc Hoff had been able to supply as replacement. Linden looked tired and frail under the thin, tattered blanket, but his gaze was steely and tone just a little too pious. Don obviously wanted to fly to his side, but something about his words and how he said it caused her to turn to Nicole searchingly.

"Why? What does he mean?"

"I... bah," Nicole's head fell back, then she slapped her knees and stood up. "You know what, Linden? You tell her." With that, the blonde headed towards the door, grabbing the hunting rifle resting against the wall and taking it with her.

It was late evening and the weather was getting cooler. Something about the wasteland at that time of day smelt so damned good. Nicole just stood there, soaking in the silence before she heard the door to Agatha's hut being violently wrenched open. From within Nicole could hear Mal pressing Linden for details as to what the hell was going on.

"The Citadel?" Don asked more peacefully than Nicole had expected, though this didn't mean she wasn't yelling. "What were you-"

"You will notice," Nicole interrupted, "that I am holding a gun. I brought it for protection."

Don stared at her guide, the blonde's words comically apologetic in some distant way. Don wasn't looking for a fight either. But it was clearly a struggle to keep her voice calm. "Is the Citadel really the best place you can come up with?"

Nicole had to study the smaller woman for a moment to assess rather or not she was using sarcasm. It almost seemed like a genuine question. "Yeah. They've got the power, and the weapons, but over all of that they'll have the will. We're going to have to tell them why Marie is so special, which means yes, they're going to want to work on her. But they have Scribes. Oh, uh, they're really smart. Scientists, you know. Nothing like what was going on in the Pitt is going to happen there. Marie will grow up happy, healthy, and hell, she'll probably get a better education than I did."

The blonde realized that comment was probably lost on the nursemaid, but didn't pursue it. Don opened her mouth to speak, but it snapped closed once more. They stood in an awkward silence, Nicole having made her case and Don not having had to.

"So, how's Linden?" Nicole asked finally. Don shrugged.

"Alright. He seems to think he'll be fine if we want to leave tomorrow, and I mean, I can't stop him. He won't be able to move too quickly."

"Is he why you're not fighting me on the Citadel thing?" Nicole asked wryly.

"He assured me that the Outcasts are not like the Brotherhood at all," Don sniffed. "But yes."

"Oh, so you'll trust him but not me?" Nicole feigned offence, trying to dig playfully at Don's subtle affections for the ex-Outcast, but the brunette took the chance to strike.

"Yes. He never lied to me."

"Yeah, yeah," Nicole rolled her eyes and followed Don back into Agatha's hut. As she was closing the door, Nicole felt a firm, reassuring squeeze on her arm, and when she turned she knew it was Don, though she was already at Linden's side. Don hadn't been as mad as Nicole thought she'd be. It was like all those times she'd kept bad grades from her father, when in reality James turned out only to be supportive. But there was something else. Maybe it was Marie, maybe it was that she hadn't had a gal pal in so long, but Nicole felt fiercely protective of the brunette. It was as if she'd found a sister in Don. It was a nice feeling. And now that there was no more hiding their destination, Nicole could move the group as quickly as she could to the Citadel. Plus Linden was alive. And Agatha had traded for some ammunition, giving it to the group as a parting gift. Mal wasn't nagging her, at least for the moment. Nothing was going to be able to stop them, Nicole thought as she watched Don put Marie into Linden's arms, and Mal opened a beer for himself and a beer for Agatha.

_Which definitely means we're screwed._

[][][]

A week had passed and Wernher was starting to forget himself. He wasn't loosing his edge. No; in fact he felt more in control of his surroundings and the future than he had in some time. Back in the Pitt he might have had hundreds of workers worshipping the ground he walked on, but that didn't change the several unavoidable issues with the decrease in steel production that was going to lead to an inevitable crisis and possible famine. Of course, here in DC, surrounded by emptied boxes of pre-war food or the remains of what had been fresh mirelurk meat, it was hard to concern ones self with the issues of a food shortage hundreds of miles away.

It was the Brotherhood of Steel. They were starting to grind down on him. Being so close to their comradely reminded Wernher that he couldn't afford to let anyone close to him lest they learn the truth of his convictions, such as Wes had, and become hardened and distant because of it. The Brotherhood's chivalry also often had Wernher visiting his past, which was annoying. Worst of all was the constant nattering of Three Dog. His voice was too appealing and enticing for a man who claimed to leave the hypnotism to the big, bad Government, while he lived fat and happy in his well-guarded tower. He had several points to argue in defence against such an impression, but there was no way anyone was getting passed the Brotherhood to make an attempt on the radio DJ's life, and Three Dog had a lot of cigars and whiskey for a dude claiming to live modestly.

Wernher had to be very careful of what he let slip while he was around the flashy broadcaster: for someone who seemed to be more show than shrewd, he sure asked a lot of questions. And the right ones, too. Of course, when he'd arrived earlier that week, Wernher had found it easy enough to say the right things and act the right way to have Three Dog begging for more by the end.

"You're shitting me, man," Three Dog and his new guest were lounging at a table where two freshly cracked Nuka Colas sat fizzing. "The Pitt? I've heard plenty of stories from the boys here. Crawling with fucked up crazies, or it was until the Brotherhood went in and cleaned it up."

While the DJ took a deep swig of his cola, Wernher let his sit. It wasn't that difficult of a role to grasp: the motives of 'Daddy Wernher' didn't exactly differ from his true incentive. The worry that flickered across his face could easily have been mistaken as paternal love.

"Still is. But the Trogs are the least of our problems. For the most part they stay out of the city, but it's... Ashur and his men that make it a living nightmare."

"Raider?"

Wernher shook his head grimly, picking up his Nuka Cola, but he set it back down untouched. He was jumpy, exhausted, confused, out-of-sorts. He just wanted his baby girl back. "No. A dictator. He keeps the city working as slaves in the steel mills. The radiation is so bad, and pretty much everyone starts falling apart at one point or another. Ashur usually ships in slaves from other cities to work. Because of the mutations... God. No one can have kids, it's impossible with the radiation."

"But that's not what happened to you?" Three Dog prodded in a tone of kindness and curiosity. Wernher sighed deeply.

"It was a miracle when we found out my wife was pregnant. I mean, we worried like hell: women had become pregnant in the past, but the babies usually didn't make it to term. If they did, their lives weren't long. My little Marie, though... four months and as healthy as can be. Hell, she out-lived my wife."

Wernher bit his tongue, not entirely convinced he had sounded as sincere as he should have, but Three Dog reached out and gripped his shoulder with surprising strength in a gesture of compassion.

"What was her name?"

Wernher's eyes glinted darkly. "Midea."

"I'm sorry, man," Three Dog retracted his hand. "In this crazy, fucked up world it's hard enough finding someone to have and to hold, let alone be able to start a family with. And now with your baby gone... Shit. But that's why you've come to me. How did you know how to get here, anyway?"

"Well, I'd been here in DC before, a few years ago," Wernher explained. "But I eventually went back. For Midea, you know. I just ended up staying. It's not exactly the easiest place to walk out of, and the cities surrounding it are a death trap. To be honest, I remembered your broadcasts and always wanted to come back here. Gave me hope." Wernher wiped at a tear and laughed. "God, I sound like a child, don't I?"

"All I see is a man grieving," Three Dog answered gravely. "So your little girl was snatched by Nicole, huh?"

"Yeah. Or at least, I think so," Wernher grabbed at his Nuka Cola and took a violent swig. "She was gone the morning Marie went missing."

"What was Nicole doing out there anyways?"

"Well," Wernher started sheepishly. "I invited her there. I wanted her to help me overthrow Ashur and his goons, but that backfired. She sold me out to Ashur, and before I knew it, she was gone with the kid."

Three Dog took a moment to let it all sink in and Wernher watched with bated breath. The broadcaster's casual address of the Lone Wanderer demonstrated that he knew the woman, and that worried Wernher. He'd never really bothered to get to know the blonde's past, though she was obviously capable and not to be underestimated. Perhaps Wernher had decided on an over-the-top story, one not to be bought by a man who must have been aware of Nicole's penchant for gallantry. It had been clear to Wernher the day he'd met her that Nicole wore both her heart and her guilt on her armour-covered sleeve, driven by a desperate need to help others. Wernher had always wondered why she looked so guilty.

"You wanted to start an uprising?" Three Dog finally asked. Wernher blinked.

"Yeah."

He jumped nearly a foot in the air as Three Dog brought his fists down onto the table with a deafening clatter of bottle caps and shattered glass."And that bitch stole your daughter? For fuck's sake..." The broadcaster stomped off towards the door. "I've got a few people to talk to, then I'm going on air. We're going to find your kid, man, and bring Nicole down once and for all."

"Wait!" Wernher stood up. Clarity. He felt a sudden clarity, and certainly he felt giddy. "This isn't the first stunt she's pulled, is it?"

"No," Three Dog snarled. "That bitch has done some pretty dark stuff."

"Like what?" Wernher's voice was soft and tentative, like a child's. But he wanted to know. Oh, how he wanted to know.

"She blew up Megaton. She blew up a whole fucking town and killed hundreds. Kids, man: she killed kids. It'll be good to finally put this dog down."

Wernher played that conversation over and over in his head with almost erotic elation as he stayed in Three Dog's compound for the next week, waiting for whispers of the woman's whereabouts or reports that she'd been seen. Almost immediately after the first radio broadcast it came through the grapevine that Nicole had been spotted by one of the travelling merchants outside of Arefu. The next day the entire town had been found slaughtered. Megaton! Arefu! It was too much.

Then the news came.

Three Dog had set up a few songs to play on the radio and went to join his new-found budding-revolutionist buddy when a Brotherhood soldier came crashing in through the door into the studio. His helmet had gotten lost long ago, and everything from his rapid breathing to excited shaking betrayed the training he'd received as a cadet as to how one should keep their nerves about them.

"Three Dog!" the youth cried excitedly. "We've got her: we've got Nicole!"

"You're shitting me," Three Dog said, keeping so much more calm than both the young soldier or Wernher who had jumped to his feet. "Nothing came over the radio."

"Only a few of us know about it," the young man explained. "They thought it best to keep the matter quiet I guess: didn't want the Citadel crawling with people looking for a public hanging."

It was true: in the week since Three Dog's broadcast had first gone out, anyone with access to a radio became a part of the witch-hunt, and soon the news spread like fire so that there wasn't one person in all of DC that was unaware of the search for the baby-snatching blonde. While Nicole had been hiding who knew where, bounty-hunters had offered their assistance free of charge, and even the young, humble townsfolk of little Bigtown had showed up to give their support. They remembered what happened to Red; they would not forget. Suddenly people were remembering the smallest grudges against her, or making them up altogether. And the Brotherhood? Well, they had their reasons.

"Take me there," Wernher said gravely, passing the young soldier who pushed himself into the frame of the door, making way for the man now as famous as Nicole was infamous. "Take me there now."


	7. Chapter 7

One week earlier

Mornings belonged to her. While the early hours of the day were a still, silent grey, she would peel back the sheets, patter to the coffee maker, and set about making a pot of the thick, unseemly brew. As her mug warmed her hands in the cold morning, she would turn the radio on and listen to a few songs before she had to make breakfast, wake the children, and start the same routine she was bound to every day. Taking her first sip, Shawna's ears perked up. Three Dog was talking about the Lone Wanderer. The DJ had been silent on his favourite subject for about two months, as it had looked like she'd fallen off the face of the Earth. Apparently she was back.

"Ol' Three Dog has a very important announcement, so you'd better listen up. I'm only going to say this once.

"Just kidding.

"I've got news from a new friend of mine that the Lone Wanderer is back."

Shawna remembered the first time she'd been introduced to the Lone Wanderer, or Nicole, as she was named. Shawna had immediately taken to the taller blonde. Although she was often sceptical of newcomers, because no one new ever came to the Republic of Dave, Nicole had seemed nice. Understanding. Shawna didn't have a lot of people to talk to who weren't many years her junior, or a sibling, so it was cool to have someone different to talk to. Dave had liked her, too, and that was more than enough for Shawna. Plus Nicole was so smart. She knew a lot about republics, actually, and had had a lot to say about them.

"This isn't a Republic, I know that much," Nicole had commented as she, Shawna and Rosie sat around one dry afternoon. Rosie was busy resetting some stitching on a pair of one of the boys' pants, and Shawna was cleaning parts of her father's gun. The Lone Wanderer was reclining in a seat with a cool Nuka Cola glistening in her hand, her lovely white bonnet sitting low on her head. Shawna was about to protest when Rosie started talking.

"There are definitely a few ways we could make it better, in any case," said the older woman eagerly, her eyes never leaving the work in her lap. "D'you know that I used to run a caravan? I've got a lot of ideas, but Dave will never listen to me."

"Well, see, that's what I'm talking about!" Nicole sat forward in her seat and pulled her hat off, fanning her face with its wide brim. "If this was a true democracy, everyone would have a say. Wait, you used to run a caravan? Really? Why'd you come here, then?"

The woman paused for a moment. "Well, you know, I met up with Dave after he'd left the Kingdom of Tom, and he had all these dreams of a rebellion and making it a better place, and I thought it sounded exciting, which it was. The caravan business was slow, and drought kept striking and I kept losing my brahmin, so I figured why not?" Rosie had stopped paying attention to the stitching, and her eyes shone with the memory of how her life had been. Her voice was playful, and it was a tone Shawna had never heard from her. It was pretty cool seeing her mom like that, so excited for once about something, but she definitely didn't like the implications it meant towards her father. "Then... I don't know. I got pregnant with Shawna here, and things got comfortable, and I didn't want to leave. Then that Jessica came around. Oh, now, I'm not jealous. I just wish Dave would listen to some of the things I have to say. This morning I tried talking to him about asking one of the merchants to stop here, and he tells me to stop bothering him because _he's campaigning_. I mean really," Rosie rolled her eyes. "Everyone is going to vote for him."

"Have you ever thought about running in the election?" Nicole asked, plopping her hat back on her head. Shawna burst out laughing. It was positively the funniest thing she'd ever heard. But she stopped when she saw the look on her mother's face.

So Rosie decided to run in the election. Shortly after Bob was struck with the inspiration to throw his name into the hat, too. And Dave had lost to his first wife, and left disgruntled.

Well, it had been interesting for the first little while, Shawna couldn't argue with that. A lot of new people came into the Republic, and it distracted her from missing her father, who had fallen from the pedestal upon which his daughter had placed him. With the travelling merchants making a destination of the Republic, Shawna was introduced to the joys of magazines and boys. She had a shy first kiss with the teenage son of a couple going North. Her brother Bob didn't like the influx of people for some reason and he left with all the weapons he could carry. Jessica didn't appreciate the changes one bit, either, but bit her tongue and looked after her children. Rosie rustled some brahmin from the wasteland, and planned to breed them, a small-time ranch her eventual dream as she explained to her daughter.

Then Levi came.

Levi was a wondering minstrel, but he could do comedy and 'improv' as well, he assured them with a crooked grin. It was a hot afternoon when he showed up, full of charisma and bravado. He told of the runs he made, of how he'd just been in Canterbury Commons for a wedding, and before that in Rivet City for a week-long stint performing from a book he'd found by a man named Shakespeare. He sang for his supper that evening, and though Shawna had thought he was only alright, her mother mooned over him like she was a teenager. Shawna had gone early to bed in the women s quarters that night, leaving Rosie and Levi to giggle over a bottle of whiskey, and when Shawna woke up the next morning her mother was gone.

"The whore," Jessica said with a smirk and then asked Shawna to set the table.

Rosie never did come back. She never sent word, either. Jessica and Shawna continued to unenthusiastically accommodate the dwindling number of wastelanders wondering into the Republic (as it continued to be called) until one day a man attacked one of the children, and they closed the gate to outsiders once more.

Her mother was gone. Her father was gone. Jessica tolerated Shawna, but asked a lot of her for a girl of 17. By some miracle no raiders had yet stumbled upon the Republic, but that wasn't a pattern likely to hold. A trader passing through into the North told of a group that had made a home of an old burnt out diner just south of their location, so it was only a matter of time, really, before they were knocking on the gate with their slurred insults and their guns. The generator was on its last... whatever. And a brahmin had died, so although they ate well for a few days, it left them improvising afterwards. Shawna was so worried about so many things, but Jessica wouldn't really talk to her about it. Jessica would only say not to worry, that she'd get wrinkles prematurely that way, and it would upset the children if they heard, so could she see about the laundry instead? Jessica was under the delusion that Dave would come back. But then, so was Shawna. They didn't dare leave lest Dave return to an empty nest. Of course, they didn't have anywhere to go, either.

Every morning Shawna awoke early for a few moments of peace to herself, but these thoughts always overwhelmed her, giving her no real peace at all. What happened when the food was gone? Shawna had never been outside the Republic before. And the children? Too much. It was all too much to think about.

So when Three Dog started talking about the Lone Wanderer, there was a moment of acknowledgement, but Shawna didn't really care. Instead she switched the radio off and listened to the silence and meagre wind howling against the house. She'd grown up fast and she hadn't wanted to. She missed her dad and she missed her mom.

"Fucking Nicole," Shawna said as she took a sip of coffee, and the bitterness of the brew couldn't compare to her mood. Blonde bitch should have left well-enough alone.

"I've got news from a new friend of mine that the Lone Wanderer is back."

[][][]

Harkness blinked, staring at the radio and wondering if what he heard was true. He was alone, sitting in the mess hall that was usually abustle with Rivet City guards. Moments earlier he had snapped the order for the room to be cleared. This was followed by the chorus of heavy boots on metal flooring and suddenly he was alone, a dull chill settling over him.

A chill. The cold. Goosebumps appeared over his arms in a swift ballet. How did these things work? A little computer in him somewhere (or was it everywhere?) had to observe the temperature of the room, and translate to the mechanics of his body to shiver, to his mouth to complain for the umpteenth time that the heat should be raised, followed by a chuckle, or a coy smile.

He didn't smile a lot any more. Harkness wasn't sleeping, and hadn't been able to sleep for some time. His memories of life 'before' were so perfectly married with the 'knowledge' that he was a normal human man that it kept him asking questions late into the night. Before he knew it, Danvers would be leaning over him, saying his shift was staring and to get his ass out of bed.

Couldn't he just switch himself off somehow? How was it that a lack of sleep was so distorting his ability to think, see straight, or hold a rifle without tiring when he was a machine? In search of answers Harkness had found Pinkerton dead; a victim to the mirelurks that made a home of Rivet City's leaky, lower East section. His body had been in scattered pieces around his make-shift haven. And it wasn't like Nicole had left him an instruction manual.

"Don't go popping that Champaign yet, children. We all know Miss Vault One-Oh-One likes to keep us guessing. A little wholesome slaughter of man, woman and child here, and the total annihilation of the Enclave there. What is her game?"

Harkness rolled his eyes. It wasn't because he knew; like everyone else, the Lone Wanderer's motives to him were a mystery. But you had to look at the big picture, look at Nicole's accomplishments. She had pretty much single-handedly pushed the Enclave back, and it was because of her they had radiation-free water to drink. They, as in every damned person is DC. Harkness wasn't going to complain about the influx of destitutes who had come looking for free water, and decided to make Rivet City their new hobo Utopia. And he didn't care about the circus just outside their front door, either. Someone else was in charge of that; Lepelletier or something (Danvers had hired her), so it wasn't his problem.

Harkness wasn't ignorant of her supposed crimes, like what happened to Megaton: he'd just always assumed those stories to be nothing more than vicious rumours. Nicole was a good girl. Not just because of what happened at the Jefferson Memorial, but Harkness had seen how she had helped the people of Rivet City, his home. He'd been suspicious about her at first, but that was Harkness's job. She had helped him, and he hadn't even asked.

'_Wait. How exactly did she help us again?_' wondered a little voice in the back of his head. Harkness continued to stare at the radio, and Three Dog continued to talk, but Harkness wasn't listening. The voice in his head was distracting. It was his voice; his old voice. The voice of the guy who used to turn on in the morning, not wake up to rub the sleep from his eyes. The guy who had investigated, tracked down and brought back escaped Synths as they begged for freedom or death.

Well? What about him?

Harkness had never realized how bitter he was. He knew he'd been frustrated, but such anger! It welled up suddenly in his throat, and stopped his breathing. Harkness thought for a moment. If he just stopped breathing, would he suffocate?

Why? Why had she done this? From before Nicole's veil of 'enlightenment', the image of a woman came to him; a girl really. Young, beautiful, with black hair braided in plaits down her back and cheeks that smiled in a permanent blush. But after... he couldn't remember if she was real, or just a part of the new memories Pinkerton had created for him.

7... 8... 9... Harkness was counting the seconds that passed as he held his breath and stared at the radio. Three Dog's voice vibrated off the walls, and the walls... got bendy.

He was sitting at a desk. A smile was plastered on his face; Harkness's face from before. The smile was always there, and he was sure that if he was human it would have made his jaw ache, the way his lips were clenched into that smile. Whoever had programmed him at the Synth Retention Bureau had made him wear that smile like his tie and clean white shirt, all polished and pristine and poised. It was the Commonwealth, everyone smiled there: they were happy and safe.

He was sitting at a desk. A smile was plastered on his face. He had papers in front of him, and folders and photos. A3-21 picked up one of the scratched photographs, thumbing the frayed edges. He inspected it with a quick slip of the smile, but it was back before he realized. The face that looked back at him was that of a man: Caucasian, middle-aged, with brown hair and green eyes. He was familiar to A3-21 somehow, like he knew him so well, yet not as well as he should have.

Harkness knew who the face was. As he sat in his seat in the upper floors of Rivet City, he knew that face. A3-21 might not have known, but he would. He would know it so well that it would become his own.

It took him a lengthy month of searching for the escaped android, but eventually the missing synth popped up in a small, two-bit town trying to blend in. Trying to be happy, probably. Trying to hide, certainly, but doing a poor job. Of course, he was attempting to be human. Fallacy was something that defined the species.

40... 41... 42...

Staring at the entrance to the ramshackle watering hole, A3-21 waited. Surrounded by men his "age", they were sharing cigars and letting the smoke rise to the stars, mingling with laughter deepened by whiskey. They kept offering him a smoke, some companionship, a smile. There was a little spark in him asking why not and eventually he accepted. He smoked. He grinned wide, and he could have sworn it wasn't just a mechanical reaction. Before he realized it, A3-21 was watching his man step out of the bar, alone, with a look of serenity on his face. He was feeling the cool air splash his face; he was feeling free and alive. A3-21 thought that he knew what the other android was feeling, but he still had to ask him why.

A3-21 never got his answer. It ended in bloodshed and mechanical failure, and the escaped synth laying on the dusty ground, green eyes staring up. The image of complete peace had settled on the android, and it was as if those eyes had watched a soul climb to the sky, leaving a body that had no soul at all; it couldn't, for it was a machine. A3-21 hadn't even wanted to hurt him, but these escaped synths got so damned scared at the thought of going back to the Commonwealth, back to what they were, to the cold, white oblivion. It was the same fear A3-21 was feeling as he looked at the body on the ground. He did not want to go; he didn't want to go back.

But he did. He reported the disposal of the synth, the paperwork was filed, and again A3-21 sat at his desk and smiled.

Two minuets... three minuets... five minuets...

Harkness tried to remember when he'd made the decision to run away. He tried to recall how the hell he got so far. But he didn t have to try very hard to remember his second meeting with Pinkerton. That was when he'd said how he wanted his new face to look. Caucasian, middle-aged, with brown hair and green eyes. Harkness wanted to have the face of the one he'd killed, the one who had screamed at him 'Self determination is NOT a malfunction' before dying behind a little saloon.

He hated these memories. When Harkness had decided that having his memories erased would be best for his survival, it was for the survival of his sanity, not for his physical body. He could deal with whatever the Institute wanted to throw at him, but his own memories were what was going to get the best of him. One of these days, he was going to find himself back in the Commonwealth. Memory and reality were going to swirl in a black pool and then he'd open his eyes, and be back at his desk. Harkness was going to go completely insane.

Seven minuets... eight minuets...

Ten minuets. Harkness felt tears on his face. Ten minuets without breathing and nothing. But he still felt cold.

Harkness decided not to try and think about how the tears worked, why his body rocked like it did. But he cursed. He damned the Institute, damned his own body, and damned Nicole. This was all her fault, anyways.

[][][]

His name was Marty and her name was Sandy and they were ghouls. Huddled together at a cluttered, stained table they spoke in quiet, gravely tones and watched Carol flitter as well as she could flutter from patron to patron, half-heartedly asking if they needed their drinks topped off, maybe a snack, anything. It had been Greta's job to deal with the food, but now that she was gone, well...

Carol settled into a seat behind the counter and sighed a sighed only a ghoul could: it was that of someone falling apart on the inside, and on the outside.

"God, she's such a bring-down," Sandy sniffed as she picked at a piece of something that had dried and stuck to the table. "Why can't we go back 'cross the hall?"

"Jesus, Sandy, how many times I gotta tell you?" Marty said a little too loudly, his particularly shredded voice cutting through the silence of the room. He moved closer to his girlfriend, spoke quietly. "Ahzrukhal kicked the bucket. Ain't anything to go back to over there."

It would have sounded to anyone like 'over there' was something more than it was, which was just another room in the dimly lit city of Underworld. But it had been, right? It had been something more to Marty and Sandy, and Snowflake and Patchwork and some others. Yeah... others.

It wasn't that the inhabitants of Underworld didn't sympathize with Carol, they did. They did so much, in fact, that simply supporting her business wasn't enough. What they felt they needed was a stiff drink, or something more. Definitely that last one, Marty thought. Greta had been a great girl, sarcastic and sharp as they come, and still very pretty compared to some of the falling-apart floozies hangin' around the place.

That wasn't just it though. It wasn't just Greta, and Marty knew it. A gorgeous dame out like a light wasn't enough to bring someone like Snowball to tears or Patchwork to, well, pieces; pieces that lay scattered around Underworld, and the poor kid didn't even care enough to get them stitched back on this time.

For the ghouls of Underworld, and for the ghouls out in the rest of the world, memories were by and large all that they had. Memories were what stayed when your hair and your skin and your insides took a walk. When your memories went, well, you were probably feral or dead. Maybe drunk. Or stoned. And that was what had everyone pining for Ahzrukhal's secret stash, even Carol. Memories were overrated for a being who had existed for 150 years, saw everything he loved get sick and die, only to be partnered with Sandy of all people, for Christ's sake.

Sandy, who was even older than Marty. Sandy who didn't do anything but take Jet so she could see the flowers of her youth again, blooming on the ceiling, breaking through the marble flooring to seek water. Water, water, God they were so thirsty, and Winthrop was just kind enough to assure Sandy he'd water the flowers as he put her to bed and her skin hummed like little precious bumblebees.

Winthrop, who didn't really care what Three Dog was saying on the radio right now. Something about Nicole. Nicole was a Godsend, as far as he was concerned. Like those who lived under her roof, Underworld was falling to pieces bit by bit, and the blonde angel was always bringing him scraps to stitch her together again. It was a hell of a lot more than most smoothskins would do for the ghouls. What, she stole some kid? Winthrop had had a kid once. A little boy, with curly red hair and his mother's eyes. And it would have been better if Winthrop hadn't met that girl, or had that boy, because then he wouldn't have had to hurt like hell when they died.

Somewhere Winthrop worked beneath the floor of Underworld, setting a new layer of welded metal onto a pipe, and somewhere above Carol choked on a fresh sob. She hadn't really heard what the newsman was trying to say on the radio, she'd only put it on to drown out the deep silence in the room, and Greta had always loved to hum along to the music. But no music now, just news of a kidnapping. It made her think how Gob had been taken from her, and then Greta. Carol thought seriously for a moment about taking the long walk across the hall to Ahzrukhal's. She knew he sold Med-X, and Jet, and all sorts of debauchery that she normally abhorred, but now they almost called to her in a little lulliby. She wasn't on good terms with Ahzrukhal because he felt she encroached on his clientele; and Carol, well, she just wanted to get along with everyone. Ah, well, he was a businessman, and Carol knew what that was about. She couldn't hold something like business against him.

But no, the man was dead. No one knew why. That yellow-haired smoothie had been around when it happened, though she hadn't pulled the trigger. Charon had. What an odd character, that Charon. He'd done everything his employer had asked, and even some things that went unsaid. He carried a shotgun, and Carol remembered that was what Greta had been killed with. Her body had smelled of sulphur when they'd found her. And then he had left with that girl, Nicole, both of them dressed in leather and their swagger the same.

Eventually Carol would hear all that Three Dog had to say. Like everyone else, she would listen as he would rap off the things The Lone Wanderer was supposed to have done. Carol noted that he forgot to mention what she'd done for that nice Riley smoothskin downstairs, or how she was bringing things around that Winthrop needed.

Then Three Dog mentioned Megaton. He might as well have just said that Nicole loaded a little pistol, sniffed nonchalantly and put a bullet in Gob's brain.

Carol straightened her posture and felt the tears in her eyes dry away. No time for crying now; it was time to work. She went to the register by way of confident strides and counted out the cash in her register. For some reason she knew that Tulip was selling a handgun for just a few hundred dollars. And a few hundred dollars was exactly what she had.

[][][]

Sarah Lyons knew what her father was asking her. He spoke softly, as though talking to the young Arthur Maxson, reminding him that playing with pulse grenades in the Laboratory was a big no-no. He was terse, but only just so slightly. He could never speak to her in anger, no, not his baby. Owyn Lyons couldn't drill her for answers the way she drilled her team with stern discipline, and the way he should have questioned a goddamned Sentinel. Disappointment would never tinge his ragged tone despite the fact that his own flesh and blood (and what a mighty lineage it was) had not been able to se through Nicole's deception. Why wasn't he mad at her? That's all she was asking for, just the common courteously of disappointment when she screwed up. God, why wasn't he furious? Sarah was. The heat of her anger burned so hot she just sat in her seat, still and cold as steel. Humiliation, frustration, it all washed over her, and above all that, disbelief. But not just in herself.

"I don't know, sir."

He was asking her a million and one questions about the Lone Wanderer. After all, they had been at the Purifier together; the outcome was something even Owyn had to be grateful for, though of course in the speeches afterwards Nicole's role had taken somewhat of a backseat. As for after that victory, and for a time following the Enclave's defeat at Adams Air Force Base, the girls hung out like girls should, huddled away in a corner of the barracks with a bottle of beer each and giggling away as they lounged in their civvies.

"Come now, Sarah, there must be something. You spent so much time with her, you must remember something."

That was them in a nutshell: she called him 'sir', and he called her by the name of his daughter, rather than by name and rank like an Elder ought to.

A moment passed very slowly. One of the other Brotherhood members in the room shifted to his other foot and the sound vibrated off the fall, the dull thud causing the room to become even quieter than silence.

"You aren't protecting her, are you?" Owyn finally asked his daughter.

"Of course not," Sarah snorted. "You want to know how the only pre-war food she can stomach is Dandy Boy apples, or how she had way too complicated fantasises about Grognak the Barbarian when she was 13, then I'm your girl. As for the people she knows, where she might go to hide out? I don't have a clue. My best guess was Tenpenny Tower, she talked about some guy there a couple of times, but we already tried that. Like us, they assumed she was dead when she didn't turn up after two months, and rented out her room. I don't know where she could be."

There were only so many times she could be asked and not have an answer. The questioning her father had called 'casual' was over, and their main focus became patrolling.

Casual. Yeah, like anything was casual about this situation. The person who had done so much for the Capital Wasteland could not possibly be the same person who had reduced Megaton to a big, black throbbing pulse of radiation. Three Dog was howling about the injustice, and everyone just nodded with grim, blank stares. Who the hell could corroborate that story, where was the evidence? If Sarah hadn't been through as many battles with Nicole as she had, then she probably wouldn't be asking herself these questions. But the truth was she had. She had seen the girl walk into the Purifier, a little shaky and certainly scared, but she'd done it and with pride on her face, as if she knew this was her part to play and was happy (or at least willing) to do it. And Sarah had seen her walk out of the Adams Air Force Base head held high after single-handedly taking out the Enclave there, to climb into the vertibird and ask casually, jokingly, what was new with her? It couldn't be Nicole. And yet...

Too many people were asking questions when they were already pretty sure that they knew the answers. Sarah had been aware of something dark in Nicole's past, and not because of the Gossip Queen of downtown DC sitting high and mighty in his radio station. Whenever the two girls had talked, all the blood drained from Nicole's face when certain words or topics of conversation came up. Guilt, accidental, redemption; the girl would go quiet, have a far-away look in her eyes, like she was a million miles away. There were a lot of bad people in this bad world, Sarah would think to herself as she'd watch Nicole's eyelids flutter and she herself would take another sip of beer. Hardly anyone was willing to try and make ammends for what they'd done, but Nicole wanted to.

The Brotherhood was taking the word of this Wernher guy without any evidence to back it up. Sarah didn't like him. She liked Nicole. All week he was watching her, making eyes at her behind his mourning tears. Sarah knew she wasn't thinking like a soldier anymore, but hey, her father barely treated her like one any ways.

And then the week was up. Reports came over the radios that Nicole had walked into the compound. They were calling her a dumb bitch, saying that she was giving herself up in hopes of leniency. That didn t sound like Nicole at all. Sarah ran back to the Citadel as quickly as she could get her power amour to take her. Sarah was going to be the first person to talk to Nicole. That was, if something hadn t already happened to her.


End file.
